The Fruits of Diplomacy
by Gil Shalos1
Summary: After a difficult mission at Ser Etta, the Enterprise is due a refit and her crew are due some shore leave. Starfleet has other plans, however. The most concession they'll make is a milk-run mission ferrying diplomats from two warring species (The Sythenes and the Voucheron) to a peace conference. And we all know what happens when you ask the Enterprise to transport diplomats...
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I believe that Shimona belongs to Barbara Hambly, and the Sulamids to Diane Duane. I hope they will take my borrowing of these characters as a tribute. Paraborg owns all else. Except for Larssen.  
She's MINE!

Acknowledgements: Mary Ellen Curtin spotted some crucial problems with an earlier draft of this. She never saw the whole thing, and I probably didn't pay enough attention to what she did say, but on plot, MEC rocks! Islaofhope,  
tireless beta! Remember this? Bet you thought it had gone to the great dead story spike in the sky! Isla beta'd this and despite the fact that her eyes had to have been crossing by the end, she was still spotting extra spaces at the last page. Not only does she have eagle eyes, she has an unerring ability to put her finger on exactly the point that is holding a story back. I probably haven't done justice to her comments in the changes I made, but I know that this story would have been a lot weaker without Isla. Any errors, bad writing,  
poor plot points, and sloppy dialogue that remains, is, of course, entirely my fault. No, actually, I'll blame my muse.

Synopsis: After a difficult mission at Ser Etta, the Enterprise is due a refit and her crew are due some shore leave. Starfleet has other plans, however. The most concession they'll make to Kirk's request for a break is a milk-run mission ferrying diplomats from two warring species (The Sythenes and the Voucheron) to a peace conference. And we all know what happens when you ask the Enterprise to transport diplomats...

CAST OF CHARACTERS

GoldenGalactic!Kirk

TheLesserAngsty!Spock

I'mNotJustThePhoneGirl!Uhura

I'mJustACountryDoctorFromGeorgia!McCoy

WhatAreYeDoinToMyBAIRNS!Scotty

IDoHaveAJobOnThisShipYouKnow!Chapel

NoOfCourseIDon'tFlyByTheSeatOfMyPants!Sulu

ShootThemAll!Chekov

as well as several poor fools in red shirts, assorted OCs and divers aliens.

I've decided that these stories (this, the The Difference It Makes, and the forthcoming "Arrows of Desire") are set in a 'nowhere' time in the first mission. That is, lots of familiar crew are aboard, and they have been for quite a while (even late additions such as Chekov) and some crew who were only in one season of TOS are still here (like Janice Rand) It's well before the end of the first five year mission and Kirk's promotion to the admiralty, they're all young and gorgeous, and I've probably given some of bridge crew inadvertent promotions.

This story takes place about two or three months after the end of The Difference It Makes.

* * *

Captain's Log, Stardate 2032.9

We are on route to the Vouche System, to collect the diplomats from Vouche II and convey them to negotiations between the Vocherons and their long-term enemies, the Sythenes. These two peoples have been at war for generations, but both have recently expressed a desire for peace. The Federation Senate hopes that peace between the two will allow both to develop the stable world government which would render them eligible for entry to the Federation. However, as the situation is still fragile, the Enterprise will provide a neutral ground for the diplomatic talks.

* * *

Personal Log, James T Kirk, Stardate 2032.9

After the strain of our last mission, which put a lot of pressure on both crew and ship, a diplomatic mission is just what we need. Although I anticipate considerable pressure on my temper, playing nice with two warlike peoples shouting at each other over my conference table, this should give Scotty time to get the engines overhauled and complete some of the repairs we've been putting off. Hopefully, I'll be able to stand down some of the crew on rotation as well. Although they'd never show it, the absence of shore leave has hit them hard. The same could be said for me! I was looking forward to a few weeks on a planet, or at least a Starbase, where Ann Ridley and I could finally talk about things without a red alert going off in the middle of the conversation. Perhaps I can persuade Ann to stand her lab down for a while, and she and her staff can join the light duty roster. A bit of light duty and some time to ourselves is just what the doctor ordered for crew and captain alike.

* * *

"It's just what you ordered, Bones." Kirk said mildly, trying not to laugh.

"'Shore leave' is what I ordered!" McCoy said. ''Light duty' isn't the same. It doesn't even sound the same! Listen to me carefully, Jim. 'Light duty'. 'Shore leave'. See? Completely different vowel sounds. Totally opposite consonants. And nowhere NEAR the same meaning."

"The doctor is essentially correct," Spock said, drawing a snort from McCoy. "Although his linguistic analysis is regrettably lacking in precision, he has expressed the core of the matter."

"Thank you, I think. Jim, you can't keep these people going like this! They need a proper rest after that last bit of business, not just a few hours more sleep!"

"I know that, you know that, and Spock apparently knows that," Kirk said patiently. "If Starfleet knew that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. There's nothing I can do about it, Bones. Just draw up the light duty rotation roster on an as-needs basis and get back to me when you're done." He stood up, stretched a kink in his back where a bad fall on the last landing party had not quite settled, and went on, "And now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a lot of reading to catch up on. Three hundred years of military and political history, to be exact."

"Captain," Spock said, "to be exact you would have to say 'Three hundred and 17 years of military history. For complete accuracy, using the Vocheron accounts of the these most recent hostilities, three hundred and seventeen years, three months, fourteen days and-"

"Spock." said Kirk wearily. His First Officer subsided. "Is there any ship's business that can't wait until we're underway?"

"No, captain."

"Good. I'll be in my quarters, gentlemen, catching up on my education."

As Kirk left, McCoy turned to Spock. "Are you SURE there isn't any ship's business Jim needs to deal with?"

"I believe that is what I said."

"The rescheduling in science section doesn't need to be brought to his attention?"

"Scheduling has always been a matter for departmental heads."

"How about the falling efficiency levels, the eight crew on light duties and four referred to Harb Tanzer in recreation?"

Spock paused. "There have been some adjustment difficulties in science section," he conceded. "however, they are within my area of responsibility and do not need to be referred to the captain."

"Don't give me that, Spock! What's going on down there?"

"Doctor, the science labs are located on decks one through seven inclusive, and cannot therefore be referred to as 'down', in any sense of the word, from sickbay."

McCoy gave up. "Just remember," he said warningly, "if those ratings drop much further it WILL be business for me as CMO, and I'll have no hesitation about referring it to Jim to get to the bottom of it."

"I am sure you will act according to your duty." Spock said coolly, and left.

Logically, he should have anticipated the conversation. The falling efficiency rates in Science, and the number of crew suffering stress related ailments, was unacceptably high for any Starfleet ship, but particularly unusual on the Enterprise. He knew his own efficiency was less than it should be. But how to explain his problem to the doctor?

Worse still, how to explain it to Jim?

* * *

"Captain, the Vocheron Ambassador wished to speak to you."

"Onscreen," Kirk said, and stood up from his chair.

At first sight, the Vocheron were not simply humanoid, they were human. The ambassador appeared to be a stately man of advanced years, with a mane of white hair and an imperious bearing. Kirk knew, however, that this surface appearance concealed vast differences in anatomy and physiology, and so was prepared when the Ambassador opened his mouth to speak and revealed rows in tiny tentacles instead of teeth.

"Kirrk." The Vocheron said, his voice slurring the word. "I am Ammbassador Tssyin, of the Vouche. Welcome to our sspace, captain. I trust you are readdy to receive myy party?"

"Yes, sir, as soon as we confirm your requirements,"

"Our needss are - ssimple." It was a terrible smile. Kirk was surprised at his own instinctive revulsion. After all, Starfleet did not post people to exploration missions if they had any hint of buried xenophobia, and Kirk had seen plenty of aliens in the past few years whose appearance was bizarre by human standards.

"Then, ambassador, we'll be happy to beam you up as soon as you're ready. Shall we say five minutes?"

"Indeed. Ourr thankss for this sservice you do us."

"You're welcome. Kirk out." He turned back to his chair, touched the intercom. "Mr Kyle, prepare to beam the Ambassador and his party aboard in 300 seconds."

"Aye, sir."

Another channel. "Bones, they're coming aboard. Meet me in Transporter room two in three minutes."

"You always do things in a hurry, don't you," McCoy grumbled, which Kirk took as a yes.

He closed the channel, said "Mr Spock?" and headed for the turbolift, Spock on his heels.

When the turbolift doors closed, Kirk turned to his First Officer. "What's your reaction to the Ambassador?" he said.

One eyebrow went up. "A brief observation over a view-screen is not enough to drawn any logical conclusions." Spock said.

"Not logical conclusions, Spock. Reaction. Impression."

"Immediate reactions are often deceptive." Spock said.

"Yes, well," Kirk said. "I find them often reliable, particularly from you."

"Perhaps, captain, because what you refer to as 'impressions' are, in my case, the result of analysis of multiple minute clues provided by body language and other aspects of demeanour."

"Just because you won't admit to intuition," Kirk said, grinning, "doesn't mean I don't have faith in your hunches."

"A most illogical statement, captain. However, to humour you-'

"*Humour* me!"

"Indeed, to humour you-"

Kirk turned to face Spock, grinning now. He felt a sudden surge of affection for the Vulcan, who was regarding him with an absolute poker face in which no-one could have read merry mischief. "Humour me, then."

"I also felt - unease." Spock was deadly serious now, although how Kirk knew that he couldn't have explained to save his life. "However, this is a common and irrational reaction to difference. I would hazard the explanation that the apparent similarity of the Vocherons to you and I being so great, the evidence of difference is more confronting. We should guard against such a reaction dictating our actions."

Kirk nodded. It made very good sense. Resolutely, he pushed down the slight queasiness he felt at the memory of that strange, tentacled mouth.

McCoy was waiting in the transporter room, tricorder at the ready.

"Put that away, Bones." Kirk said. "It's not polite to scan Ambassadors without permission."

"But, Jim," McCoy said, sounding for all the world like a child forbidden a new toy, "no-one's ever had a chance to scan the Vouche. This would be the first chance to get some data on their internal make-up, their -"

"I too feel a certain curiosity about the Vouche," Spock admitted. 'However, the captain is right. It would be a breach of protocol to examine them here and now. It may be possible for the captain to gain permission for an examination at a later date."

"The two of you will drive me distracted." Kirk said. "I have to somehow manage all of this, negotiations and all, end a three hundred year war - yes, all right Spock, a three hundred and five year, seventeen day war, and also persuade them to lie down on a diagnostic bed and say aaaah?"

"Three hundred and -"

"Spock!" It was a spontaneous cry from both humans, and the Spock was silent, glancing from one to the other with a suspiciously blank expression.

"We are seeking out new life, Jim." McCoy pointed out. " And this is it."

"All right! All right!" As the first sparkles of the transporter effect appeared on the platform Kirk drew himself up to be credit to the Federation. "I'll ask them. Later."

There were three Vocherons on the transporter platform, the ambassador and several others, one appearing female and the rest male.

"Welcome aboard, Ambassador." Kirk didn't offer to shake hands with the Vocheron. Instead, he lifted one arm shoulder high and turned his palm outwards. The Vocheron matched the gesture, and Kirk repressed a slight sense of queasiness at the way the arm bent in not quite the right places. What's the matter with me? he wondered.

"My sstaff," Ambassador Tyssin said, stepping down from the platform. "Aides Kythis and Sachys. And our sservants."

"Welcome aboard, Kythis, Sachys. Gentlebeings." Kirk said.

"We are pleassed to be here, Captain." one replied.

"This my First Officer, Commander Spock, and the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer, Dr McCoy."

"Greetings," Tyssin said. "Thiss is a fine vessel, your starsship. My congratulationss to you."

"Well, *we* like her," McCoy said, beaming ingenuously. "Another thing we like, Ambassador, are these handy little medical tricorders. You see, you turn them on like -"

Kirk jostled the doctor's elbow and the tricorder fell to the deck. "Ambassador," Kirk said, "Would you care to see your quarters?"

"That wwould be agrreeable." Tyssin said, and Kirk signalled to the security team at the door.

"This way, sir." said one, and led the Vocherons out. When the door closed behind them, Kirk turned to McCoy. "I think you're the one who needs shore leave most, Bones." he said.

"You do, do you." McCoy said, with a look at Spock that Kirk couldn't read. "You do, do you, huh?"

* * *

Kirk stepped away from the rowing machine, his muscles trembling with the pleasant lassitude of a long workout. Bones had reminded him that he had been letting his exercise regime go over the past few months, and that 'too busy' might have applied when the Enterprise was under fire, but not at the moment. As usual when he started taking Bones' advice after a period of letting things slide, Kirk was surprised at how much better he felt for it. From experience, he knew that within a few weeks he would have forgotten the difference, and when the next crisis came along it would be all too easy to skip a meal, an exercise session or two... or three or four or two dozen.

Not this time, he thought firmly (as he had thought a dozen times before). This time I'll stick to it.

On his way to the shower, Kirk paused to watch Hikaru Sulu's martial arts class. As he stood there, Lieutenant Larssen took a blow to the stomach and doubled up, gasping.

Kirk had seen her here several nights a week since McCoy had certified her fit to return to full duty, and on each occasion she had been getting the stuffing beat out of her by one or another of the hand-to-hand combat teachers. Kirk was beginning to wonder if he should step in. Larssen's determination in the face of her demonstrated unsuitability might, by some, be considered admirable. Kirk had long since passed that stage of life where a willingness to endure pain for no purpose other than stubbornness looked like anything other than stupidity. Or instability.

Larssen flew through the air again, muttered something in a language Kirk didn't understand, and got up. Resolutely, she assumed the ready position, and failed to counter her opponent's hip lock and shoulder throw. This time, she rose more slowly.

Kirk shook his head, deferred the decision until he would have a chance to talk to Hikaru Sulu about the amazingly uncombative Lieutenant Larssen, and went into the showers. He was meeting Ann Ridley for dinner, and he was close to being late.

Of course, it was an even bet whether Ann would be angry with him over lateness or angry because he wasn't and she had an experiment she wanted to finish. Kirk stripped off and stepped into the sonic. He had been puzzled when Ridley had requested assignment to the Enterprise, although pleased she'd be aboard for longer and that he would have the chance to spend time with her when things were less ... tense than during the mission to Ser Etta Six. The benefits to her research had seemed an inadequate explanation, given the degree of her anxiety at being on board a ship of the line, although Kirk had seen by the number of papers she had published in the past few months that the benefits were real and substantial.

Ridley's apparent about-face had been further explained when it became clear that she, too, wanted to explore the possibility that the mutual comfort they had found with each other might lead to a deeper relationship. And, indeed, it might. Except...

Except Ann Ridley did not belong on the Enterprise. She did not belong on any starship, for that matter. Kirk had tried to assure her that she would get used to it, that she would learn to tell the difference between real danger and the insecurity of inexperience, but she had not seemed to ... and of course, there had been too much real danger over the past few months for his words to do anything but ring hollow.

Kirk had found himself on the verge of suggesting she go home several times, but each time the knowledge that his words would sound like a personal rejection had stopped him - and she was a hell of a scientist. The output from her lab was 4 points above even Spock's, and Kirk knew she was doing most of the work herself. She worked, god, how she worked! He had dropped by her lab on his way to duty some mornings and found her hunched over equipment, flipping through slides or running analyses. Twice, when he had said hello she had asked him if she was late for dinner.

It was when she wasn't working that was the problem. She made love to him with a desperation Kirk found unnerving and when they weren't coupling she was as likely to start a fight as a conversation.

He shook his head to clear it, and turned off the sonic. There was no rational reason for him to feel guilty. He had been honest with her, all the way along. It didn't help. He *was* responsible, even if the consequences of his actions had been unintended, unforseen. The road to hell, he thought with a certain wry desperation. The road to hell is paved...

He went to the comm. "Ann? Care to join me for dinner?


	2. Chapter 2

McCoy flicked the PADD to standby and closed his eyes. He had always hated the way that resource restrictions on starships made it impossible to print out everything he had to read. The PADD might have been designed to copy, as close as was possible, the effect of print on paper but as far as McCoy was concerned it was like saying replicated coffee was as close as possible to freshly ground beans prepared in a cafe in New Orleans.

"Not even in hailing distance," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. He would, he knew, have felt less tired if his hours of reading had revealed any of the information he had been seeking. As far as starfleet medical resources were concerned, the Vocheron were a mystery. The Vulcan Academy of Sciences Database (abridged version) was no more informative, nor were the Federation Xenobiology Institute Abstracts.

"I'm just going off shift, doctor," Christine Chapel said from the doorway. "Anything I can get you on the way out?"

"A dead Vocheron!" McCoy growled, and she smiled.

"No luck?"

"No luck, bad luck, you name it. Come in for a moment, Chris. Want a drink?"

"Not really," she said, but she sat down opposite him. "There are other species with this kind of privacy taboo, Len. Don't take it so personally."

He poured himself a generous measure of bourbon, poured one for her as well. "I'll take it personally as long as they're on my ship! What am I supposed to do if one of them gets sick and refuses to let me use the medical tricorder on them?"

"You're an old fashioned country doctor," Chapel said with a smile, "I'm sure you'll think of something."

McCoy snorted, and then held out one hand as if taking the pulse of an invisible patient. 'Now tell me, Ambassador," he intoned, "just where does it hurt?"

Chapel laughed, and swirled the untasted bourbon around in her glass. "I was cross-referencing the crew efficiency reports today," she began, "and -"

"Oh, lord." McCoy interrupted. "Don't tell me, let me guess - my psychic powers tell me - " He covered his eyes with one hand, and flung the other out dramatically. "Science section has you concerned?"

"I'd be more impressed with your 'psychic powers' if your initials hadn't been all over the files," Chapel said dryly. "What's going on down there, Len?"

"Spock has a problem," McCoy said. "Spock has a problem, and it's not one he's going to be able to handle with logic."

"What problem?" Chapel asked, leaning forward with a frown.

"Spock's problem is about five foot one, with red hair and green eyes and a way with her staff that makes Ghengis Khan look like the model of a personnel manager." McCoy said sourly. "Spock's other problem is up on the bridge at the moment, sitting in the centre chair and generally running the ship. Between these two problems, Science Section is drifting further and further into a morale crisis. I can't butt in until the efficiency ratings reach the mandated point. Our illustrious leader doesn't know, or isn't asking, whether there's anything for him to butt *into*, and Spock the Inscrutable is trying to hold everything together without involving the captain or admitting that there just might be something a Vulcan Science Officer can't do. My personal impulse is to trot down to Science and turn the lovely and intelligent Ann Ridley over my knee, which if someone had done more regularly about thirty five years ago might have prevented this whole situation."

"Sounds like a fuck-up in process." said Chapel, and thought that she might have that drink after all. McCoy's eyes twinkled as she raised the glass.

"Don't hold back, Christine. Tell me what you really think"

She grinned at him. "I think we need a second drink."

McCoy poured it. "Do you think I should meddle?"

Chapel looked at him in blank amazement. 'Excuse me." she said. "I thought I heard you ask someone's opinion before you leapt into something with both feet."

"I said," McCoy repeated, "do you think I should meddle?"

"Who are you, and what have you done with the real Leonard McCoy?"

"Don't be sarcastic, Chris, it doesn't become you. I want your opinion. Your highly regarded, professional opinion."

"As opposed to-?"

"As opposed to something you came up with using a ouija board, of course."

"Nah," Chapel said. '*You're* the one with psychic powers. You know the captain better than I do." She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was quieter,  
and there was pain beneath the banter. "You know them both better than I do.  
Wouldn't Mr Spock tell the captain if there was a serious problem?"

"With a crew member, yes. Hell, if it was a crew member, I'd tell Jim myself without a moment's thought. Jim and I both know Spock well enough to know that if someone has a problem with him, it isn't Spock that's causing it. But this woman... well. She stayed on the ship to be with him. It doesn't seem that casual."

"I heard she stayed on the ship because she was having so much progress with her work. And I've seen the output on that lab. The rest of science section may be lagging, but Lab Seven is extraordinary."

"Well, she isn't charming it out of her staff. And yes, maybe she did stay for her work, but she's with Jim more nights than not these days. And I don't know how things are going with them, but if my country doctor's intuition is worth a snowball in a supernova, it isn't quite wine and roses right now. *And* I'm guessing Spock has some idea of that as well. He watches Jim pretty closely."

"And so?" Chapel said.

"And so Ridley might just ask for reassignment any time now. Or Jim might have already spoken to her. Or he might speak to her off his own bat, and she might leave the ship. Or maybe they'll work it out and she'll get some sense of proportion. Or they'll work it out and he'll speak to her and she'll be all sweetness and light. I'm not sure I want to go stamping into Jim's love-life in my size fourteen meddler's boots when I don't quite known what I'm stamping into."

"Mr Spock... is he not mentioning it to the captain for the same reason?"

"Maybe. Add a dose of stiff-necked Vulcan pride to that, too... And -"

"And?"

McCoy looked at her, his fierce blue eyes suddenly soft with memory. "And neither of us will forget Edith in a hurry, Chris. Between us - what we did to him. Do you think that we'd stop short of anything if there's even a chance this woman could be what he needs?"

* * *

Ann Ridley tucked her hands into her pockets and paced. Only half past eight in the morning, or 830 hours as they said in this stupid space navy, and already she was pacing. She counted steps, seven, eight, nine across the lab, one, two, three back again, and she was doing quite well at concentrating on her feet and not on the Ensign at the lab bench until he made that annoying little sound with his tongue that he always did when he made a mistake, a sort of a click, a cross between a click and a snort...

She was halfway through the sentence before she realised she was shouting aloud.

"What the goddamn hell is it THIS time, huh? What have you done THIS time?"

Ensign Thoas cowered away from her, but she was too angry to feel anything but satisfaction. "Ma'am, ma'am, I'm sorry, I just - I just slipped the mu spectrum readings over the dionetrics line, I'm sorry, it'll just take a minute, I'll re-run -"

"No, you bloody well won't! You'll leave it alone. I don't have TIME for you to mess around with this series! Every time I ask you to do something it takes three times as long as if I'd just damn well done it myself! Just leave it,  
leave it alone, I'll do it, get out, go on, leave!"

'Ma'am, I can fix it." he said shakily, and that was a mistake. The top blew off Ridley's temper like a volcano and she started forward, fists clenched. Thoas blenched, back away, and then turned and ran. Ridley threw a stool at the door as it closed behind him, slammed her fists on the bench and roared. The two crew members left in the lab sat very still, and that was good. If only they'd always sit still and work instead of messing up her experiments and making annoying little sounds to announce that they had, maybe she'd be able to concentrate on her job and not on riding herd on a crowd of Starfleet incompetents!

Ridley stood motionless at the bench until the knot in her gut loosened, and then with exaggerated care she fetched back the stool she'd thrown and seated herself at the bench. Soon, she was absorbed in rerunning Thoas' series,  
flicking the readings through smoothly, sorting and registering at high speed. It was only when she was completely absorbed in work that she could forget her ongoing fury at having to put up with "Science Officer" Spock making decisions about how HER lab ran, could forget the continuing infuriating irritations of working with assistants who weren't trained for her type of research.

Could forget the thinness of the hull between her and the cold dark.

* * *

"Well, you can't say they *impose*," McCoy said, and it was half a complaint. "I haven't seen more than a glimpse of them since they came on board."

"They're probably afraid you'll come after them with your tricorder." Kirk said.

"Have you asked them about that?"

"Not yet, no. I'm waiting for a good time."

"Chicken." McCoy said.

"I fail to see," Spock said gravely, "how the captain's concern to avoid offending our guests makes him a terran avain."

"Oh, now, Spock, you're supposed to be on *my* side! Don't tell me you're not as curious as I am about their makeup. And I wouldn't do that if I were you." McCoy pointed at Spock's knight. "That's an accident waiting to happen, trust me, I'm a doctor."

"You're a doctor, Bones," Kirk said. "Not a chess grandmaster."

"Well, it's my professional opinion that moving that knight will be bad for Spock's mental health. I *really* wouldn't do that if I were you, Spock."

"Fortunately, doctor, that is a state of affairs unlikely to come to pass."  
Spock said, and moved the knight. Kirk leaned forward, trying to see what move McCoy expected him to make.

"I'll tell you, Jim," McCoy said with a wicked grin, "if you promise to ask the Vouche *tomorrow* to let me have a look at them."

"No deal, Bones." Kirk said amiably.

"To seek out new life," McCoy said with mock sarcasm, "isn't that what we're doing? And there it is, in the guest quarters!" Then, realising he had pushed too far when Kirk lifted his head and gave him a blank stare, McCoy raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Who wants another drink?"

Spock merely raised his eyebrow, not having had a first drink. Kirk shook his head.

"Not for me." He hesitated, moved his bishop. "I can't stay for another game."

McCoy squinted at the board. "The way you're playing, that's probably just as well. Going somewhere?"

"A late dinner with Ann." Kirk said. Concentrating on the chess board, he missed the glance McCoy shot at Spock and the way Spock suddenly became 'extra Vulcan'.

"How is Ann?" McCoy asked casually.

Kirk hesitated. Normally, these two men would be the ones he'd turn to for advice, or just for a friendly hearing, or to be told he was being a fool. The last fight he'd had with Ann, though, she'd let him know exactly what she thought of the idea of him discussing her with Spock and McCoy.

"- and don't think I wouldn't be able to tell from that Vulcan non-expression just what he thought! I have to *work* with those two, Jim!"

"She's fine." Kirk said now. "Fine."

"How's she adjusting to life on a starship?"

"Fine." Kirk said. "She's adjusting fine."

McCoy noted that the captain couldn't meet his eyes as he said it, however.

I'm going to have to raise it with him, McCoy thought. I'm going to have to,  
or else Spock's refusal to will keep him from knowing about it until it's a formal disciplinary matter, and that'll look bad on Spock's record. Dammit!

* * *

"Is that all, doctor?"

McCoy focused on the PADD in front of him, and then looked up at Corrina Larssen, seated on the other side of the desk.

"Are you sure you're fit to be on active duty?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes, doctor." Larssen said calmly.

"Hmmph." McCoy studied the charts in front of him, although Larssen knew they showed she was physically fit and she also knew that McCoy himself had prepared them. "You know, Lieutenant, I used to quite enjoy the quartet."

Larssen blinked, and felt rueful respect for McCoy's deft blindside. "I'm glad to hear it." she said.

"I miss it, too. When are you guys going to get together again?"

"When the time is right," Larssen said.

"Your hands have healed."

"Yes, thanks to you."

"So why not now? The crew could use a little concert. It'd be good for morale."

"Perhaps we shall, Dr McCoy." She rose to her feet. "If that's all?"

"That's all," he said, and then suddenly reached out and grabbed her left hand.  
Turning it palm up, he ran his thumb over the tips of her fingers, where new skin showed pink and soft. "I expect to see some calluses here next time,  
Lieutenant. Or I'll have to reconsider my assessment of your fitness. You've been playing that thing, what, every day for 10 years?"

"Every second day or so for five," she corrected him, and pulled her hand away.  
"Which does not mean that a break from playing indicates that I'm losing my marbles."

"Oh, no." he said. "No, it doesn't. But I like the crew to act the way I expect them to. If you want to give up the cello for good, I'd expect to hear a reason from you. See my point?"

"Yes." she said, and ducked out the door before he could go on.

She slipped in to the lab quietly, knowing that Spock would have seen her appointment with McCoy on her schedule when he drew up that week's roster, and knowing too that Commander Spock would have neither forgotten nor expect her to offer a reminder. Brand waggled his eyebrows at her as she came in, and took the first opportunity to ask her why she was late.

"Seeing the doctor," Larssen said breifly, and held out her hand with the faint tracing of scars still visible.

"What'd he say?"

"That I'm fit for full duty."

"Way to go," said Brand, and slapped her shoulder in congratulation. Larssen reflected, not the for the first time, that she didn't seem to have the knack of either forming close friendships with her fellow junior officers, or keeping them at a distance. Brand, for example, despite the fact that she outranked him, had a disconcerting tendency to treat her like a sister: that is, with complete familiarity when circumstances forced him into her company, and total avoidance when they were off duty.

A request from Commander Spock interrupted her train of thought, and for the next few hours she was very busy with a geospectral analysis of the latest lot of planet side samples. When all the samples were sorted, identified and logged, she tipped them into the disposal tray at the door. Attractive specimens might be souvenired by crew looking for something to send home - Dear Mom, thought you might like this, it came from Omicron Ceti IX, love, your offspring - and the rest would go to recycling to feed the ship's expensive mineral habit.

Larssen looked at the chrono and blinked. No wonder it was quiet. Alpha shift had ended hours earlier. Now that she thought about it, she had a vague recollection of Brand saying goodbye and taking off through the door as if he were late to dinner. The lighting had gone over the ship's night, that half-dimmed glow in between brighter spots along the way that, deliberately or not, echoed night-lit planetside streets. She took a deep breath, imagining as she often did at this time of day that the air itself tasted different during the night shifts, moister somehow as if the whole of life-support was in on a conspiracy to reproduce a diurnal cycle.

"Ms Larssen." said a voice behind her, and she turned. Commander Spock stood in the door to his office, backlit by his reading lamp. "Have you completed the geospec?"

"Yes, sir. I just dumped the samples, but if you'd like to check the results I can-"

"I am sure your analysis was thorough." he said, in that way he had which half-hinted that his confidence came from the knowledge that, now he had mentioned it, any crew with doubts about their concentration would make certain of each and every reading before they turned in their report. "I see Dr McCoy has pronounced you fully fit."

"Yes, sir, although he'll be calling me down again a few more times over my hand." Larssen said, mindful that Mr Spock would prefer not to be taken by surprise by the doctor's requests. There was a pause, and Larssen was not quite sure whether she had been dismissed or not. Just as she decided she had been,  
and was about to finish clearing up before going off shift, Spock said, "Are you - well - Lieutenant?"

"I believe - as well as can be expected, sir." she said quietly. He was no McCoy, he would not press her, but she was also aware that Commander Spock was perhaps the only person on the Enterprise who knew the full extent of the healing she needed to do. And she could not lie to him. Not, so much, because he would be able to tell, but because it would be a betrayal of the understanding they had come to, down in the blizzard "Dr McCoy - wants to see calluses on my hand." She held her left hand out, fingertips up. "From the cello strings. Apart from that, he seemed pleased enough."

"Music is an excellent mental and physical discipline." Mr Spock said, and for a moment she thought he had not understood McCoy's meaning. Then he went on,  
"Although many humans place unwarranted emphasis on the emotionalism of music,  
on Vulcan it is considered as a training for the body and mind in concentration and precision."

"Yes, sir." said Larssen.

"Your shift is over, Lieutenant. You are free to leave." Spock said, and went back into his office.

"Yes, sir." Larssen said again, wondering if he'd just agreed or disagreed with McCoy.  
Back in her quarters, she looked for a while at the cello case clipped to the wall. McCoy, much as she loathed to admit it, was somewhere in the vicinity of the truth. She felt a deep reluctance to touch the instrument, had done so since she found out Bob Grenwood had requested the string quartet to play at his service. There was no reason for it, she told herself. The cello, and the music, and herself, were the same whether Bob had wanted his crewmates to hear Bach as his coffin was fired out into space or not.

Beside the cello case was a dresser, and on the dresser sat a small, worn,  
unidentifiable stuffed toy. Only an owner's loving eye could have discerned that it had once been a bear. Both eyes were missing, and one arm, and the ears were mere tattered stubs. Larssen picked it up. "Well, Coochie?" she said to it. "How silly, am I, eh?"

Coochie looked blindly back up at her, and Larssen rubbed her cheek against his remaining fur. Coochie had been the one thing she had taken with her from Initar to Starfleet Academy. She had felt stupid taking him out of her duffle and setting him on her bed in the Academy dorm, and while she was a cadet he had stayed hidden in a drawer. Arriving on the Enterprise, with the privilege of a junior officer's tiny but private quarters, Coochie had resumed pride of place on the dresser. Sometimes, after a particularly bad day, Larssen still took him to bed with her.

Look at you, she thought. Running the risk of a psyche exam with that perceptive meddler McCoy rather than standing up to your own idiocy, and talking to a decrepit old stuffed bear ... Is this the behaviour of an officer and a gentlebeing?

"Sorry, Coochie." she said, as if he could have heard her thoughts, and set him down on the dresser again.

The instrument felt wrong in her hands as she took it down and settled the scroll against her shoulder. What should she play? Bach? Dvorjak?  
T'stlethsesan?

Scales, Larssen decided. Let's start with scales. She let her fingers find the familiar worn places on the neck, and began to play the simple progressions,  
straining for precision, focusing on concentration, trying to play as a Vulcan would.


	3. Chapter 3

"Why don't you join us?" Kirk said.

"Thanks, but I see enough of Mr Spock during the say," Ridley said, not turning from her work. "And I'm sure you have Starfleet stuff to talk about."

Kirk leaned in the doorway. "Ann," he said, "how are things going?"

"Just fine when I finish this last run and cross-reference the results with the earlier series."

"But - generally?"

"Oh, *generally*!" Ridley said with a snort. "*Generally* I'll be a lot happier when I manage to break my staff in to work the way I need them to. *Generally* I'll be just thrilled when I have the same staff in my lab for more than a week." She looked up, and then relented. "I'm fine, Jim, I just want to get this finished. Go on and have dinner with your friends. Everything's fine here. I'm just - blowing off steam."

He moved to the bench to look over her shoulder. "More heamecrit?"

"No, this is a tissue sample from radiation exposure, Jim!" A long, narrowed eyed look, and then she said in a loud stage whisper "Are you sure you aren't playing dumb about this stuff to get the teacher to explain?"

He smiled, kissed her cheek, then her lips as she turned into his arms and raised her face to his. "Maybe." he said when she pulled away reluctantly. "Wouldn't do for me to admit it, though."

She laughed and ran her hand down his arm affectionately "And here I thought you wanted me for my way with bioscans."

"You do have *quite* a way with bioscans. I was reading your last paper."

"On oxygen spikes in silicon life-forms under decompressive force?"

"No, the one on DNA alteration disaggregated by radiation type. Stop testing me, Ann." Perhaps he let the flash of irritation show, although he had not meant to. She pulled away slightly and turned back to her equipment.

"Yes, well, I'm glad it met with your approval, Captain."

"Ann." he said, and when she didn't move, "Ann. Come on. I only meant to congratulate you. Spock said it was an impressive piece of work with wide practical application."

"Oh, *Spock* said." she said brightly. "*Spock* said. Well, I guess it *must*  
have been good work."

Kirk thought about asking her for a list of acceptable remarks, so he could talk to her without always saying the wrong thing. He thought about asking her if it was unreasonable for a science officer to offer, and a captain to listen to, an opinion on scientific work that might in application save the lives of crew-members. He thought about asking her if she was sure she wouldn't be happier if they dropped her off at the next Starbase to make her way home by luxury cruiser.

Looking at her thin shoulders, rigid with some emotion she would not admit to,  
he said none of those things.

"If you change your mind," he said, "we'll be dining in the Officer's Mess. Night, Ann."

He put his hand gently on her shoulder, and after a moment she covered it with her own.

"Night, Jim." she said, and sniffed fiercely.

At the door he looked back, but she was absorbed in her work, and no matter how long he lingered she just sat with her eyes pressed against the view piece, flipping the samples back and forth.

* * *

"Mr Spock!" Professor Ridley's voice got the attention of everyone in the lab.  
Usually, her voice was exactly what one would expect from her appearance:  
small, precise, intelligent. At the moment it had the impact of a whip crack,  
and one look at the Professor told Larssen why: Ann Ridley was in the grip of a fury truly frightening to behold.

"Mr Spock!" she snapped again, and as the Science Officer emerged from his office, Ridley added "About bloody time!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Larssen saw Yeoman Brand's eyebrows go up until they nearly disappeared into his hairline. She could almost feel the breeze created by his flapping ears. Without changing expression, Larssen elbowed him hard in the ribs and began to whistle the first tune that came into her head. It was an old junior officer's trick : when it becomes likely that you are about to witness something your superiors would rather you didn't, remind them you exist. Tactfully. She elbowed Brand again and he joined in, bravely following her through the cello part of Beethoven's second string concerto,  
innocent of key.

"I am sick and tired - " Ridley was saying, "of having my lab staff disrupted by schedule changes designed to make YOUR lab run more smoothly. I would appreciate a little consideration into the running of my lab when you get it into your head -"

Desperately, Larssen began to sing the music aloud, la-la-laing through the complex fingering of the entreact with a will.

"-into your head that-" Ridley had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the noise "you are no longer the only scientist of merit on this ship! I insist that in future ALL decisions - WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP!"

There was an moment's frozen silence. Larssen could tell, by the ferocious itch between her shoulder blades, that Ridley was staring at her back, but she resisted the temptation to turn. "Mr Brand," Larssen said sotto voce, out of the corner of her mouth. "I suggest you take today's samples down to cryo."

"But they -"

"I suggest you do it now, Mr Brand." Junior Officer Embarrassing Incident Management Rule Two: if inadvertent eavesdropping cannot be avoided, spare whoever you can. Brand took the hint, snatched the sample tray and bolted;  
Larssen wished she could order herself to leave as well as Brand. Footsteps came towards her and she fixed her eyes on the readout before her. She had no desire to become a target for Professor Ridley's legendary anger, but sitting here like sticking out like a sore thumb wasn't much of a way to avoid it. The footsteps stopped behind her and she nearly jumped out of her skin when the voice that spoke was the precise, polite tones of Commander Spock.

"Lieutenant. Mr Brand will require assistance in with the cryo storage unit."

Bless his Vulcan hearing! Larssen thought, forgetting that she had been blasting it the day before when he'd overheard her filling Bai'tin in on the episode of 'The Blue Moons of Tauree' Bai'tin had missed the night before. "Yes, sir!" she said smartly, snapped to attention and went out the door at creditable double-time, picking up an impressive speed for a standing start.

"I cannot believe," Ridley said. "that in ANY laboratory, let alone one on a military vessel, such conduct would be tolerated. I'd have those two on report before they got back here! What are they doing going to cryo in the middle of a shift anyway?"

Spock turned, his face closed. "I do not advise you on the conduct of your staff, Professor." he pointed out.

"I don't need your advice, *Mr* Spock." As always, she refused to use his Starfleet titles or rank, choosing to emphasise his lack of academic title instead. Spock, of course, felt no irritation at this petty ploy, and now he simply regarded Ridley impassively.

"I agree that any disruption to your work is unfortunate," he said, "however laboratory staff schedules are frequently disrupted by ship's business. I have endeavoured to provide you with as consistent a staffing schedule as possible in the circumstances."

"Rubbish! Your staff hardly ever change, and I haven't had two the same for the past month!"

"My staff rarely change because disruptions to the ship's schedule interrupt my work as well as theirs. If I were to transfer Ms Larssen, Mr Brand and Mr Bai'tin to your staff, I would be obliged to find replacement staff for you the next time those three were required for a landing party or other ship's business."

"You're not obliged to do anything, damn you, you're the next best thing to God in this department and you're only saying that to have an excuse to transfer them out like all the other staff you've transferred out! I'll have those three in my lab from tomorrow and they'll stay - I WILL NOT tolerate any more problems caused by breaking in a gaggle of new Starfleet fools, hear me?"

"Indeed, Professor, my hearing is excellent." Spock made no response to her accusation of dishonesty. "Unfortunately, I cannot spare any of my staff at this point in my work. When the current geological survey compilations are complete, I will examine the situation again."

"You will examine the situation NOW, mister." she said. "I want those three in my lab TOMORROW or I will know the reason why!"

She turned on her heel and marched out, oversetting a lab stool on the way. As her footsteps died away, Spock picked up the stool and, unusually, sat down on it. Professor Ridley was becoming an increasing disruption to the smooth operation of his section. Her work was indubitably valuable, but her assumption that she had a prior call on Enterprise crew and equipment was proving difficult to accommodate without pointless confrontations.

He considered arranging the staff schedule as he had previously intended to,  
and letting the matter take its course. Unfortunately, its course would doubtless be (both by Starfleet procedure and interpersonal dynamics) direct to Captain Kirk's desk.

Spock did not want to place his captain in the position of adjudicating between the Enterprise's first officer and the Enterprise's chief civilian scientist. Even less did he want to place Jim Kirk in the awkward position of having to chose between reprimanding either his friend or his lover. Consequently, he had made the decision when Ann Ridley had made her first complaint to handle the matter entirely within the Science Section. Now, on Ridley's side at least, it had turned into a full scale feud. Spock was not sure if this was the Professor's standard behaviour, or if she was motivated by personal hostility, but he suspected the latter. Certainly, one reason for the frequent rotation of staff in to and out of her laboratory was the deleterious effect the Professor had on morale and efficiency.

And now, this latest demand for Bai'tin, Brand - and Larssen. If he had been human, Spock might have sighed. When it first became apparent that the Professor was difficult to work with, he had considered assigning Larssen to laboratory seven in the expectation that she would both handle the Professor's behaviour and provide a stabilising effect on the rest of the staff. He knew from her file, however, that both Dr McCoy and Harb Tanzer of Recreation were monitoring Larssen, an indication that they believed she had not fully recovered from Ser Etta Six. It would be no service to her to assign her to Professor Ridley,  
if that were the case.

Spock reached for the comm., and paged Larssen and Brand to return to duty. When they came in, he motioned Larssen to his office, and closed the door behind them.

"Please be seated, Lieutenant." he said. "Professor Ridley has made a staffing request. She has requested that you, Mr Brand, and Mr Bai'tin be assigned to laboratory seven for an extensive period of time." He paused. "In the hope that it will contribute towards establishing a - more stable - working atmosphere in this section, I am considering granting her request. However, I do not think that assigning reluctant crew to work with the Professor will have that effect. Therefore, I must ask you - are you willing to accept such an assignment?"

No. Larssen thought instantly, but she said: "Of course, sir."

She expected him to dismiss her immediately, but he looked at her a moment longer.

"Please speak freely, Lieutenant."

The thought of spending all her working hours with Ann Ridley made Larssen flinch. The woman's brittle temper and towering rages were already legendary among the crew. She guessed, though, that Spock was currently caught in a difficult position between the captain and the scientist who, despite her individual reputation, was nonetheless the captain's woman.

"I'm sure I can learn a great deal from Professor Ridley." she said.

"See that you do not learn too much." Spock said dryly. "And see, Lieutenant,  
that if you find your position - untenable - you report the situation to me."

"Yes sir," she said. "Would you like me to do so if Brand or Bai'tin find things similarly - difficult."

"I consider that appropriate." Spock said. "Thank you, Lieutenant. You may go."

* * *

"I could do it," Ridley said, and Kirk was afraid she might not be joking. "I'm a civilian, I'm not tied up with all these silly Starfleet rules, and -"

"No." Kirk said, a little more loudly than he'd intended, and winced. Ridley jumped up off the bed and began pacing, and in other circumstances Kirk might have enjoyed the view.

"This is so stupid!" she burst out. "This is all supposed to be about new knowledge, and you're all tiptoeing around when there's a chance to get some information that nobody has ever managed to get!"

"We have other considerations," Kirk reminded her. "Peace in these two systems, an end to a war that had cost thousands of lives. Surely that's worth a little patience."

"Well, you wouldn't have to *tell* them," Ridley said, hands on hips. "I could just lurk around in the corridor and sort of scan them when they weren't looking. They'd never notice me."

Kirk refrained from laughing at the image she conjured up. "What if their objection to being scanned is based on some sensitivity they have to the tricorder output?" he said. "They might be able to feel it - it might even cause them pain."

"You could ask them."

"And if they weren't telling the truth?"

She glared at him. "That's not the reason, though, is it?"

"No. It's one of the reasons, but it's not the main one. The main reason is that they've told us they object to tricorder scans, and we respect their wishes."

"Hmmph." Ridley said, and let Kirk take her hand and draw her back to the bed. "Just once I'd like to find a situation where the starfleet general orders make life easier."

Kirk laughed. "Me too," he said. It came out with less lightness than he'd intended. "Me - too."

* * *

Captain's Log, Stardate 2035.2

We are entering the Sythene system, ready to collect the second diplomatic team for these peace talks. To date, the Vocherons have been polite and reasonable,  
raising our hopes that the negotiations will go smoothly. To Dr McCoy's disappointment, they have explained that they have a religious objection to being scanned by medical tricorders.

* * *

Personal Log, Captain James T Kirk

The Vocheron have kept themselves very much to themselves for the duration of the travel between Vouche and Sythene. They seem to be an extremely private people, and I confess I've been somewhat relieved that they don't wish to mingle with the crew. Although I share McCoy's disappointment at the lost chance to add to our knowledge of the Vocheron, their appearance is ... unsettling, and doesn't grow less so on further acquaintance. I bear in mind Spock's admonition, not to let an irrational reaction affect my judgement, but - well, they give me the creeps. Not very grown up for a Starship captain, eh? Oh well, a few days more and the negotiations will be over, and we'll be taking them home. And then, with any luck, shore leave.


	4. Chapter 4

"Ambassador." Kirk stepped forward a little, when the Sythene party hesitated. "As I said, welcome aboard. Won't you please step down from the platform?"

Slowly, Ambassador Trygian did so. He looked around the room, staring suspiciously at first Kirk, then Spock, and then the other Enterprise crew,  
before finally turning his scrutiny on the transporter console and the walls.

Kirk waited patiently. Although this did not seem typical behaviour for a species which had been starfarers for centuries, there was nothing to be gained by rushing the Sythene beyond their desired speed.

"Could you all - could you all open your mouths, please." the Ambassador said.  
"I realise this is impolite, but it is necessary."

Of course, Kirk thought, he's paranoid enough to believe we might be Vouche plants. He set an example for the others by opening his mouth until he thought his jaw would crack. The ambassador examined Kirk's teeth carefully, and then turned and looked into the mouths of each of the other crew members.

"Thank you," he said at last. "We have been at war for a long time." For an instant, Kirk thought the ambassador meant to say more, but instead Trygian turned to the others of his party of envoys. "They are not Vouche."he said. "Come down."

Obediently, the others stepped from the platform, keeping close together. They were startlingly different from the almost-human Vouche. Short and stocky,  
they had deeply mottled, ridged skin. Their eyes were without apparent pupil or iris, and Kirk had trouble telling where they were looking until they turned their heads.

"Where are the Vouche?" The ambassador asked.

"They are currently in their quarters. Would you like to see -"

"No. We would not. Where are their quarters?"

"Guest quarters on D deck." Kirk said, maintaining his patience and his smile with a little bit of effort.

"Where are our quarters?"

"Also guest quarters on D deck."

"How far from the Vouche?"

"A corridor away - that's about 150 yards."

"Not far enough. You must house us elsewhere."

"Ambassador, we shall do out best. How far away from the Vouche quarters do you wish to be?"

"As far as possible. The other end of the ship."

Kirk smiled and smiled, and kept his eyes warm and welcoming. "Of course. Will you excuse me please?"

He went into the corridor and took out his comm. "Kirk to quartermaster." he said.

"Singh here, captain. How can I help you?"

"Mr Singh, I need storage bay 87 cleared out, and transformed to guest quarters for our Sythene party."

"Yes, sir."

"How long will it take?"

"How long do I have?"

"Between fifteen minutes and an hour."

There was a small, very telling silence.

"Yes, sir. Singh out."

Kirk went back into the transporter room.

"Gentlebeings," he said, "Who would like a tour of the observation deck?"

Trygian turned to him. "Are the Vocherons there?"

"I'll find out." Kirk said. "Computer, location of the Vocheron ambassador and party."

"Working," said the computer. "Vocheron Ambassador and party are currently in guest quarters on D deck."

Ambassador Trygian nodded. "Very well. I confess I am curious about this ship of yours. But will your computer tell us if the Vocherons leave their quarters?"

"I can arrange that." Kirk said.

"Then please do so."

Kirk gave the necessary instructions, and then gestured to the door "This way,  
Ambassador, gentlebeings, please."

As they walked down the corridor, Kirk said as casually as he could, "You will of course see the Vocheron Ambassador for the negotiations?"

"Of course," Trygian said, his powerful legs churning to keep up with the longer limbed humans. "Of course. It is merely that we do not wish to be -  
taken unawares."

"I see." said Kirk, who wasn't quite sure he saw at all.

He was even less sure that he saw the next day, when the negotiations commenced. Ambassador Trygian and his party were late, so the Vocherons had been waiting for nearly an hour. Ambassador Tyssin showed no signs of impatience, however, simply watching the door unwaveringly.

When the Sythenes did arrive, they were in biocontainment suits, the sort of suit a Starfleet scientist might wear to work with hazardous or unknown biological contaminants. Kirk allowed himself a blink before he rose to the occasion, indicating the chairs prepared for the Sythene party, chosen for their suitability to the Sythene anatomy.

The ambassador and his aides, without a word, and without turning away from the Vocherons, dragged their chairs away from the table and arranged them so that they were next to the door, as far away from the Vocherons as possible. Then they sat, and suddenly each Sythene produced a sidearm, which they aimed at the Vocheron.

Aware of Security bristling behind him, Kirk cleared his throat and said: "Ah,  
Ambassador? It's not usually Federation practice to negotiate while armed."

"Ohhh, let thhhhhem," Ambassador Tyssin said, showing no sign of being disconcerted. He smiled widely then, and the Sythenes drew a little closer together. "We don't mmmmind. It will all be the sssame in the ennnnd."

It sounded more like a threat than an expression of good will. "Ah, Ambassador Trygian." Kirk said. "Really, we would appreciate it if your party did not point their weapons actually *at* the Vocherons."

"What you appreciate is not our concern." Ambassador Trygian said, not turning his head from the Vocherons. "We are here to negotiate, but we are prepared to defend ourselves."

"My security people can defend you against any threat offered to you," Kirk said.

"No, I think not." Trygian said, and then, obviously dismissing Kirk ad his concerns from his attention, leaned forward slightly and said: "I presume,  
Tyssin, you have a list of mandatory outcomes. Perhaps you had better simply tell us what they are and we can get this over with."

Tyssin smiled again, his mouth tentacles writhing. "Ahhh, nnno, little one. That is nnnot the way negotationssss work." Kirk sat down in a chair near the door, carefully out of the way of everybody's line of fire. He could feel the beginning of a headache coming on.

* * *

"Try not to let her get to you," Larssen advised patiently for about the 100th time.

"That's easy for you to say, NOTHING gets to you."

"Lots of things get to me. Professor Ridley just isn't one of them."

"Well, I don't understand how you can stand the bitch!"

"Mr Brand, that's not appropriate language." Larssen's voice was still very mild. "Firstly, you neither asked nor received permission to speak freely, and secondly it doesn't matter whether Professor Ridley is a civ scientist or a Starfleet one, she deserves your courtesy."

"She doesn't give me any courtesy! Or you, for that matter - I mean, this morning, when - "

"That's her prerogative. Mr Brand, if you're so distressed by her behaviour,  
let's not give her the satisfaction of replicating it, okay?"

Larssen turned and walked away down the corridor, refusing to have anything further to do with the conversation. In truth, she was more upset at Professor's Ridley behaviour than she was happy to admit, even to herself. That morning, when the Professor had questioned her results on a mass spectrometer reading and insisted on rerunning the entire series herself,  
Larssen had felt a hot wave of humiliation wash over her, a familiar feeling from her years at the Academy, when everybody else had been smarter and faster and more competent than she was, and there had been so few of the bright young people with time and patience for the slow moving, slow talking colonist whose body had outgrown her grace. Only her memory of what she had endured to get there had kept her from giving up. Since then, though, she had discovered that youthful precociousness was not all that was valued in Starfleet: in her postings at various Starbases, her methodical precision had won her the respect of other, more brilliant,  
scientists. Here on the Enterprise, Spock himself seemed to trust her judgement and had never once questioned her work.

Professor Ridley, however, seemed to take Larssen's slowness as a personal insult. Today was not the first time she had criticised it. It was only the first time she had buttressed that criticism with other words: 'stupid', as well as 'slow'. 'A great stupid lump,' to be exact. Larssen felt herself flush again at the recollection, and kept her eyes down as she walked briskly to her quarters. It was odd how those she wished to see her as strong and competent viewed her as small and feeble,  
and those she wished to admire her precision and delicacy saw her as a galumphing giant.

Once inside, went to the fresher and stood under the sonic shower to get rid of the sweaty hot feeling that seemed to go hand in hand with embarrassment, then pulled on her pyjamas, and sat down on her bed.

The last thing she wanted to do was examine her feelings about Professor Ridley, but she had too much innate honesty to pretend that she didn't know that examine them was exactly what she should do. Larssen closed her eyes,  
slowed her breathing consciously until she was calm, and tried to separate herself from the shame she felt when Ridley's narrow, beautiful face came to mind. Why does she get me so upset? she asked herself, trying to be clinical about it. She's only one person. When I feel myself getting upset, I should think of all the OTHER people who don't act as if I'm a moron and a bumpkin.

It was sound advice. Larssen wished she had any confidence she'd be able to take it. She opened her eyes.

"Well, Coochie?" she said. "Any pearls of wisdom?"

Coochie sat indifferent on the dresser, and Larssen sighed and stood up.

Taking down her cello, she tuned up and began to play the sonata she had been practicing. She had learnt it well, however, and without the need to concentrate on sight reading it was too easy to begin to add emphasis, to draw out the inherent tension of the piece and increase the intensity of the -

She put the bow down. "Computer," she said, "display score for Clark String Quartet 26, 2078."

"Working." said the computer, and her terminal showed a new and complicated piece of music. Larssen raised her bow again, frowning slightly. Sight-reading this would be tricky...

* * *

Kirk looked back on the headache he had felt at the start of the negotiations nostalgically three days later, when the regular review of crew efficiency was interrupted at 1700 hours by Tyssin paging McCoy for a medical emergency in the Vocheron's quarters.

McCoy was out the door with his kit in his hand in a blur of movement. Kirk caught up with him at the turbolift, noting (not for the first time) that for all his aw-shucks-I'm-just-an-old-country-doctor act, McCoy could sprint like a track star and show the endurance of a marathon runner when a medical crisis demanded it.

"Come on, damn it!" the doctor was saying now, staring impatiently at the turbolift doors. "Come on, come on, come on! Jim, you need to have someone take a look at these lifts, they're getting slower -"

The doors hissed open and McCoy fairly leapt inside. Kirk followed, saying "Computer, command override this lift, straight to D Deck."

"Yes, captain." The computer said, and the lift started moving faster than normal, staggering both its passengers with increased V.

"Although what they expect me to do," McCoy said, "I have no idea. It's not as if they've let me get any data to compare a sick Vocheron with a well one! And without a tricorder I may as well just try laying on hands."

Neither the laying on of hands, nor the medical tricorder, were necessary. It was quite clear from the moment they entered the Vocheron guest quarters that the time for medical procedures, and for urgency, was past.

Tyssin's aide, Kythis, lay sprawled on the floor. His eyes were open and unblinking. That was not the reason Kirk and McCoy immediately realised he was dead, however. No, it was the huge charred hole in the Vocheron's chest that gave them that idea.

"What happened here?" Kirk asked, as McCoy knelt by the body.

"We donnnn't know, captain." Tyssin said.

"Kirk to Tomlinson." Kirk said into his communicator. "Ms Tomlinson, security team to the Vocheron's quarters immediately."

"He's dead, Jim." McCoy said unnecessarily.

"You just found him?" Kirk asked Tyssin.

"Yesss, we were in the other room, discussing the negotationss, and then I heard a noise, a falllling, and cammmme in here. And therrre he wasss."

Kirk looked at the scorched wound in Kythis' chest, and thought of the weapons of the Sythenes. "Just a moment." he said. "If you gentlebeings would go back in the other room, and remain there, we would appreciate it."

"Nnno, we musst remmain with our dead." Tyssin said firmly.

"All right. Please remain with him on the other side of the room and don't touch anything. I'll be back in a moment."

"But, wwwait, Captain. On the other sside of the rroom? I don't understand."

"Ambassador, this is clearly not a natural death. Therefore, it must be investigated. There are many things that can tell us how Kythis died, and it's better if nothing is disturbed."

"Investigatted? Howww, captain?"

"Ambassador, we will consult with you before any actions which affect you or the body of your colleague, rest assured. Now, if you will excuse me, I really have to talk to my crew." Without waiting for a further protest, Kirk went out into the hall, and when the doors had closed behind him, he raised his communicator and spoke.

"Spock, Kirk here. I need to know exactly who has been into and gone out of the Vocheron quarters for the past - better make it 6 hours. And I need to know where the Sythenes were that whole time."

"This will take a few minutes," Spock said.

"When it's done, page me, but don't say anything until I tell you I'm private."

"Understood, captain." Spock said, faintly disapproving that Kirk could doubt his discretion. "Spock out."


	5. Chapter 5

The office comm. went, and Ridley slapped it.

"What?" she snapped.

"Professor Ridley, this is Commander Spock. An emergency has arisen and I am calling all on-duty science personnel to assist."

*An emergency*. Ridley felt her skin go cold. An emergency on a starship usually involved things exploding, ships leaking air, people dying. She took a deep breath, and let it out as a snarl. "No you aren't. I've told you, I won't have my lab schedule disrupted! Find someone other than Larssen and Brand!"

"Professor, I have endeavoured to do so. Please send them to Science Lab 4 immediately."

She shut off the comm. without replying, and went out into the lab. That great blob Larssen was running a duedenetic analysis in her maddeningly slow way. Still, Ridley had to admit, she rarely made mistakes, and a slow lab assistant was better than no lab assistant. She paced back and forth, hugging herself,  
wondering what the 'emergency' was. Commander Spock wanted a coffee, no doubt!  
No, that wasn't fair. It would be very un-Vulcan of him to call all personnel in unless there was a good reason ...

Ridley felt cold and sick again. She strode over to Larssen and looked over her shoulder. "Good heavens, woman, you don't need to step it down to point 4 for a simple pass over readout! What do you think you're doing?"

"I like to be sure, ma'am." Larssen said in that bland way she had.

"I like to be sure and quick! Step it up to one over five and run it that way."

"Yes, ma'am." Larssen said, and did so. A whistle from the comm. made her start and the dial slipped.

"Children of women." she said in Romulan, but it was inaudible beneath the sound of Commander Spock's harsh voice saying:

"Larssen and Brand, report to Science Lab 4 immediately. Larssen and Brand, to Lab 4 immediately."

"Sorry, ma'am." Larssen said, flicking the viewer off and getting up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Ridley said. Larssen paused. She stood head and shoulders above the professor and shouldn't really be afraid of her,  
but Ridley's face was white and set and her fists clenched.

"I have to report to Lab 4, ma'am." Larssen said. "Brand, on the double."

"No you don't! You work in MY lab now, and I told Spock I wouldn't have you dragged out for whatever it is."

"Oh." Larssen said. "I see. Ma'am, I have to go."

"I just told you," Ridley said, very slowly, "that you are *not* to go. Are you DEAF as well as daft?"

"No, ma'am. He's my commanding officer, ma'am."

"I'm in charge of this lab!"

"He's given me an order, ma'am."

"I'm giving you an order NOT to go." Ridley said, her voice rising.

Larssen blinked, and took a breath. "Ma'am. He's my commanding officer, and you're a civilian. I'm very sorry about this. We'll be back as soon as we can." She took Brand by one elbow and, dragging him with her, left the lab,  
leaving Ann Ridley shaking with rage.

Larssen was shaking as well when she got to the turbolift.

"Can you believe it?" Brand exclaimed. "She really thought - "

"Save it, Mr Brand." Larssen said mildly, and he stopped. She concentrated on being calm as the turbolift let them out at lab 4, and they hurried down the corridor. When they reached the door, Larssen realised that they were very late: the room was full, and faces turned to see who was straggling in tardy and could expect a reprimand. *Ah, the blood sport of lower decks*, Larssen thought. *Watching Commander Spock in action when there's a fuck-up in the offing.*

However, he said nothing, simply gave them both one cool look and turned back to the display projected over the lab table.

"The search will begin on D deck and extend from there. Security is fully occupied with the area of the incident itself. Alpha and Beta teams, take the cross rotation. Gamma team, the crawlspaces. Delta and Epsilon teams, take the counter rotation. Ms Larssen, Mr Brand, since you have missed the briefing, you will be with me."

"Yes sir." Larssen said as the rest of the crew started to move, streaming out into the corridor and collecting themselves into teams with very little fuss. As Commander Spock picked up his tricorder and came to the door, she fell in behind him and said:

"Sir, I'm sorry I'm late."

He did not look up from his tricorder. "I assumed it was not your intention."  
he said.

"No sir."

Amazingly, he seemed disinclined to pursue it, which had to be a first in Larssen's experience. The Science Officer was known for his dedication to efficiency ratings, and lateness was not tolerated in his section. When she had first joined the Enterprise, another crew member had told her: 'If you're late for Spock, better have a broken leg. Better yet, have two.' "- approximately 20 minutes ago." Spock was saying now. "Although it is difficult to be precise with the Vocheron dislike of tricorders. However, witness testimony indicates that this is the timeframe with which we have to work."

"Time frame for what, sir?" Larssen asked, figuring that between admitting she hadn't been paying attention and looking incompetent later on because she didn't have the information, she was between a rock and hard place.

He did look at her then, one eyebrow up. "The murder of Ambassador Tyssin's aide, Kythis." he said. "Scan for heat signature residues, biological traces,  
and out of place objects."

"Yes, sir." Larssen said, taking out her tricorder and moving away down the corridor. She filed the question of Commander Spock's unusual tolerance for tardiness and inattention away for consideration later, dismissed Professor Ridley from her mind and focused on the tricorder screen.

It was a long, slow job, a sweep of the Enterprise on this detailed a level,  
and made worse by the limited number of crew available to complete it. By the time Larssen had finished D deck and moved down to E, she could feel the beginning of a cramp starting in her neck from peering down at the tricorder screen. By the time she got to F deck she was pausing every ten feet to stretch the hand that held the tricorder. By the time she got the G deck she was just pushing on in the hope that the various parts of her that hurt would just go numb soon.

Starting with my feet, she thought, and then jumped a little as the tricorder beeped. Not much of an anomalous reading. Just that the crawlway above her had a little too much metal in it. Larssen narrowed the field patiently, until she had the additional metal pinpointed to a four inch square about a foot from the nearest access hatch. That looked awfully suspicious, but she was not going to call Commander Spock down here to look at an engineering tricorder someone had dropped on the last of Mr Scott's crawlthroughs.

The ceiling was a good four feet above Larssen's head in that part of the ship.  
She slung the tricorder back on her shoulder and went to look for a ladder. In a nearby room, she found a chair, which would do.

The access hatch lifted easily back when she pushed it, and she could get her hands around the frame if she stretched on tiptoe. She took a firm grip,  
jumped and pulled, and managed to hold herself in the access long enough for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer lighting.

A phaser.

Larssen dropped back down, and looked around for a wall comm. Not seeing one,  
she took out her own.

"Commander Spock?" she said. "Larssen here. I'm in corridor 39 on G deck between sections alpha and gamma. I've found something. Would you like me to take a recording and seal it, or would you prefer to see it in situ?"

"I would prefer to examine it myself, Lieutenant. I will be there shortly."

Larssen moved the chair from the middle of the corridor and, since there didn't seem to be any reason not to, sat down on it. Her section chief at the Academy had given her one piece of advice: in Starfleet, you sit down and you sleep every chance you get. If you can't sit down, squat. If you can't squat, lean. If you can't sleep, doze. If you can't doze, at least close your eyes. Being over eager and upright won't get you noticed: it'll just get you tired.

Larssen leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. When she heard footsteps coming down the corridor she got up and stood at ease before Spock came into sight.

"Lieutenant." Spock said, with a glance at the chair. "What have you found?"

"There's a phaser in the overhead duct, sir." she said.

"There is a ladder in storage at corridor 38, beta section." Spock said, aiming his tricorder at the ceiling. "It will provide more suitable access for recording and retrieving the object than a chair."

"Yes, sir." Larssen said, lifting the chair and heading off in search of the ladder. When she returned, Spock was still running tricorder scans on the immediate area. Silently, she set up the ladder and stepped aside.

"I can find no DNA traces or any other biological contaminants in this area except for those left by you and I." Spock said. "Please run a subcellular scan of the corridor, beginning with the duct access and extending from there."

"Yes, sir." Larssen said, beginning to reset her tricorder. "Sir, I didn't find anything in the duct either. Except for me."

"Since we both have an alibi for the period in question, these readings do not provide us with a suspect."

"No, sir. But it's a dog in the night-time situation."

He paused, halfway up the ladder, and gave her the eyebrow. "I am sure you have an excellent explanation for referring to nocturnal canines. Perhaps you would provide it?" His voice was inflexionless, and Larssen swallowed.

"It's a story." she said. "An old earth story. A detective solves a mystery because of the behaviour of the dog in the night-time: the dog didn't bark,  
which meant..." she trailed off, tried again. "It's a short hand way of saying that what is absent is as significant as what is present."

"What is absent in this case, Lieutenant?"

"The traces and residue from the maintenance crew who should have been through that crawlway four days ago. And the signs of crew in this corridor. I know this area is not high traffic, but there's still traffic."

Spock started up the ladder again. "In future, you might consider communicating such insights in a more direct manner. Assuming an understanding of cultural referents is rarely justified and interferes with clarity."

"Yes, sir." Larssen said. Well, she thought, I didn't get chewed out in public for lateness. I guess I should be grateful to get chewed out in private for something else. She turned the tricorder to a new section of the wall.

Spock, now head and shoulders in the access, verified Lieutenant Larssen's report with his own tricorder. He then ran a subcellular scan, a broad band wavelength scan to check for energy signatures, and when they were both negative he went through the time-consuming process of checking each type of radiation individually, from heat traces to mu spectrum. On the finest calibration, his tricorder picked up a slight spike in the energy range known as Phillips Lines, after their discoverer.

He moved a step down the ladder, and ducked out of the access. Larssen was scanning the floor now. By her expression of mild astonishment, he judged she had also found an anomalous reading. Alternately, Spock thought, she has just remembered she has missed dinner, or the captain has announced a red alert. It was well within Larssen's capacity to react to each of these incidents as if,  
on the scale of importance, they were all the same, and at the low end of the scale at that.

A small upright line appeared between her brows. Spock had seen that line appear when a test series gave an unexpected result, or a computer query returned an answer that was beyond her understanding. Larssen would say, at such moments, 'Field too large, sir,' rueful at her lack of comprehension. Spock had always allowed himself to be slightly amused by that expression, and had once or twice set her tasks which he knew would produce it.

"The Phillips Lines, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Spiking at the 437 point and again at the gamma half-life."

"The readings within the access are similar. What is the magnitude of the spike?"

"Point four three eight nine thirty four."

"Considerably lower than in the access. And the phasar itself shows a higher reading than the crawlway generally."

"Making it a safe assumption that the phaser was in the company of the source of radiation for longer, and that the source of radiation was in the crawlway,  
but not the corridor."

"There is," Spock said sternly, "no such thing as a safe assumption. It is an adequate working hypothesis, however. I will seal the phaser for later lab analysis and follow the Phillips Line signature through the access."

"Yes, sir." Larssen said. "I'll continue the scan."

"I may require your assistance," Spock said. "Please remain here until I return."

"Yes sir."

Spock set up the portable stasis generator so the field included the phaser and then boxed them both for transport. The Phillips Line traces extended in both directions up the crawlway, as if whatever had made them had come along the crawl way, dropped the phaser, and continued onwards. He considered following the trail as far as it ran away from the phaser, and then returning and travelling in the other direction, but dismissed it as time consuming.

Larssen was startled almost out of her wits at the sudden appearance of Spock leaning out of the access hatch. Being upside down, his hair was obeying the usual laws of gravity, but he appeared to find nothing incongruous or ridiculous in his position and Larssen stifled her laugh.

"Lieutenant, you will follow the Phillips Line trace back towards section 21,  
while I follow it forwards."

"Yes, sir." she said. When she had climbed up the ladder and pulled herself into the hatch, Spock was visible only as a pair of heels moving steadily towards the forward section. Larssen manoeuvred herself around the transport box, set her tricorder at the required frequency, muttered "Children of promiscuous women" in Romulan, and began to crawl.

Spock was impervious to the discomfort of the crawlway as he pulled himself rapidly along. The trail was clear, and he had no need to hesitate or consider when he came to branches in the network of access tunnels that honeycombed the ship. His mental map of the Enterprise provided him with the knowledge that he was travelling away from the parts of the ship devoted to ship's business, and towards crew quarters. When the trail stopped short at an access hatch, Spock knew he was above the junior officer's quarters. He lifted aside the access hatch, and dropped neatly through.

The crewmember who sat up in bed, wildly startled at the noise, was unfamiliar to him.

"Please accept my assurances that this intrusion is necessary," Spock said. "Have you observed any persons exiting the access hatch in the past four hours,  
or any other unusual occurrences?" Although it seemed to defy logic that any crewmember would have failed to report noticing anything outside the limits of normal ship's business, Spock had long ago learnt that with non-Vulcans, it could be necessary to state the obvious.

"No, no, sir," said the man. Spock was able to recall that this particular cabin was assigned to Lieutenant (junior grade) Hoffman, of Tactical.

"Why are you not assisting in the search of the ship, Mr Hoffman?" he asked,  
and Hoffman blinked at this further evidence that Vulcans knew *everything*.

"I'm unwell, sir. Dr McCoy placed me on the sick list for the next twenty four hours."

"I see." Spock scanned the room with his tricorder. The Phillips Line traces disappeared here. He moved a chair to the access hatch and scanned the inside of the tunnel again, confirming that the trail led no further.

"Mr Hoffman, there are unusual energy traces leading to this room through the crawlway, which disappear at the access. Please examine your memories of the last few hours for any occurrence, however slight, outside the usual, and report to me."

"Yes, sir." said Hoffman. "I've been asleep, though, sir. The doctor gave me a sedative."

"Do your best," Spock said, and went out into the corridor. It was inconvenient that a potentially valuable witness had been deep in drugged sleep at the crucial time. It occurred to him that whatever had left the energy signature might have realised that Hoffman was unconscious and that therefore,  
using his room to leave the crawlway was safe. However, it did not explain the absence of Phillip's Line traces here, in the corridor.

The room above Hoffman's was also crew quarters, the quarters of Pavel Chekov. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that whatever they pursued had been able to pass through the floor and enter Pavel Chekov's room. That was the logical place to examine next.

Although, Spock thought as he strode to the turbolift, if passing through floors was no obstacle, the long journey along the crawlway was illogical. Still, it was even less logical to ignore all possible avenues of investigation.


	6. Chapter 6

"It's pretty straightforward, Jim." McCoy said, pacing up the corridor a little way and then back. "Massive trauma caused by a phaser set on full, straight to the chest. The Vocheron seem to have no problem with my using a medical tricorder on a dead body, but the wound is so severe I can't tell much about what *used* to be in the chest cavity. I can't find any organs elsewhere that would be used for blood circulation or oxygen processing, though, so I'd say that the Vocheron equivalent of heart and lungs are located fairly close to where ours are." He paused. "Just about everything else seems to be located where ours are, as well."

"Can you tell whether it was self-inflicted?" Kirk asked.

"Not really. Given the high setting, there's no traces around the edge of the wound to indicate what angle the phaser was fired from, and any energy signatures could well have dissipated by now, even if they were present. And,  
in case you're wondering, the body temperature indicates that time of death was around the time the Ambassador claimed they heard the body falling. The wound had cooled just far enough to be consistent with that, as well."

"Spock says that no-one save the Ambassadorial party entered the Vocheron quarters all day - all week, actually. And no-one after they all returned from the negotiations."

"Well, that's your first argument against suicide." McCoy said. "Who hid the phaser?"

As if on cue, Kirk's communicator beeped.

"Kirk here." he said.

"Captain," Spock's calm voice returned, "I have completed a preliminary investigation."

"What have you found?"

"The evidence indicates that someone left the Vocheron quarters by the crawlway, taking the phaser which inflicted the wound with them. They continued along the crawlway some distance, leaving the phasar behind in the lower decks area, and eventually exiting through the quarters of Mr Hoffman,  
who was sleeping at the time."

"I gave him a sedative," McCoy said. "Nasty flu that boy has."

"Meet us outside the Vocheron quarters." Kirk said.

"Yes, sir. Spock out."

"So it's murder." McCoy said.

"Or a dammed complicated cover-up for a suicide. Kythis didn't move that phaser himself."

"The Sythenes?" McCoy asked, and Kirk shook his head.

"Not one of them left their quarters in the crucial time. They were all there when Spock checked the computer, and there was no entry or exit from the converted bay."

"Even by the access tunnels?" McCoy asked. "I mean, I'm just an old country doctor from Georgia, but it seems to me that if you've got one group of people pointing guns at another group of people, and then one of the second group of people turns up dead from a gunshot wound, you want to look pretty hard at the first group."

"I'm sure Spock thought of the access tunnels." Kirk said.

"You mean, you're sure he computed the exact probability to nine decimal places."

"To fifteen, actually, doctor." Spock said as he came up the corridor.

"Damn Vulcan hearing." muttered McCoy.

"The only evidence of the presence in the access crawlways was an unusual energy signature." Spock said. "Gamma team is currently scanning the entire area around the temporary Sythene quarters for such a trace. They report negative results. I will verify their findings when I am free to do so. In addition, lab nine reports that there are no cellular or DNA traces on the phaser which was found in the crawlway. It is of Starfleet manufacture, and security is currently attempting to determine whether it is an Enterprise phaser or not. It is definitely not one of the weapons brought on board by the Sythenes"

"You tracked the energy reading to the Vocheron quarters?"

'No, captain. I tracked it to Mr Hoffman's quarters. I assigned Ms Larssen to follow the traces in the other direction, and judging from the computer reports of her current location, I deduce they originate from the Vocheron quarters."

"How can you be so sure?" McCoy said.

"Allow me to demonstrate, doctor." Spock went to the door of the Vocheron quarters, and then inside. From the middle of the room, he said in a voice slightly louder than conversational:

"Lieutenant Larssen."

The result was gratifying, if unexpected. Directly above them, Larssen started, lost her balance, leaned on the access hatch trying to recover and dislodged it, plunging through into the room below.

Slightly flushed, she picked herself up off the floor. "Yes, sir?"

"Have you determined the origin of the traces?"

"Yes sir. The access hatch, sir."

"Which access hatch, Lieutenant?" Kirk asked, more to see her response than because he was confused as to her meaning.

She gave him a level stare. "The one I just fell through, sir."

Behind him, Kirk could hear McCoy snort. "Don't tease the junior officers,  
Jim." the doctor muttered under his breath.

Spock looked at Kirk, and raised an eyebrow. Years of familiarity had given Kirk the ability to tell that this was a "Is this discussion better continued elsewhere?" eyebrow, as opposed to a "I find that comment idiotic, but I am too polite to say so" eyebrow, or a "I do not believe a word you're saying, but you're the captain,  
Captain." eyebrow. Kirk nodded, and headed for the door again.

'Lieutenant," Spock said, "Lab Nine has just completed an analysis of the phaser you located. Please report there immediately and prepare a statement of their findings for the captain. I have uploaded the relevant parts of my own investigation to the ship's computer, and Gamma Team will do the same when they have finished their current task."

"Yes, sir." Larssen said. She had been on duty for fourteen hours now, a goodly portion of it spent crawling through the bowels of the ship, and it was an even bet whether her feet or her knees hurt more. The amount of work he had just given her was monstrous. On the other hand, it was axiomatic with Commander Spock that he would not assign tasks to more junior officers unless his own time was taken up elsewhere.

"When that is complete, verify lab nine's findings."

She blinked.

"Yes, sir." she said, and started on her way. Blonde children of promiscuous women, she thought to herself as she waited for the lift. Short blonde children of...

Kirk leaned his head on his hands. It was a show of weariness he would not normally have permitted himself, but with only Spock and McCoy in the briefing room, his fatigue seemed suddenly too great to hide.

"Run that by me again, Spock." he said. "No, don't. Summarise it."

"There is no indication that any of the Sythene party left their quarters during the crucial time frame. In fact, there is no indication that they left their quarters at any time other than to participate in the negotiations, when all members of the party were in plain view. The negative evidence of no trace at any level of their presence elsewhere is compounded by the positive evidence of all members of the party having been seen by Ensign Laeter when she enquired as to the suitability of their diet at 1645 hours yesterday, and again when she returned with the equipment to modify the replicators at 1735 hours. The death of Aide Kythis occurred prior to 1700 hours, but by the temperature of the body and the wound, not very much prior to that time. The Vocheron diplomats testimony indicates it took place almost exactly at 1700 hours. Even discounting that testimony, it is physically impossible for any member of the Sythene party to have reached the Vocheron quarters between 1645 and 1700 hours, particularly given the presence of security crews at each door, which limits the method of ingress and egress to the access hatches to the crawlways."

Kirk raised his head enough to nod.

"Furthermore," Spock went on, "Although it is impossible to rule out the Vocheron themselves as perpetrators of this crime, as they were all in the guest quarters at the time, each independently confirms the presence of all the others in the inner briefing room at the time the body was heard to fall, and all were in the presence of one or another of the Enterprise crew from 1701 hours until 0423 this morning. It was during this time that the phaser was discovered. I should note here that no other phaser has been located in the Vocheron quarters or anywhere nearby."

"In simple language, then," McCoy said, "they might have done the murder, but they couldn't have hidden the weapon."

"Yes." Spock said. "Which leaves the conclusion that either a member of the Vocheron party committed the crime, and another party assisted hir to conceal the evidence, or another party is responsible for both acts."

"That would seem to be - *logical*." McCoy said.

"Indeed," Spock said. "It is unfortunate that it also means that a member of the Enterprise crew is responsible for part, if not all, of this grave crime."

"That's ridiculous!" McCoy said. "First of all, there's no *reason* for any member of the crew to attack the diplomats! I'd lay odds that no-one on this ship had *heard* of the Vocheron before three weeks ago. Why kill them?"

"Simply because a motive is undiscovered, does not mean that it is non-existent." Spock said.

"You cold-blooded son-of-a-" McCoy started. Kirk reached out and laid one hand on his arm, and the doctor stopped.

"What's your second reason, Bones?" Kirk asked.

"The idea is just plain ridiculous, that's my second reason." McCoy said. "A member of Starfleet, of *this* crew, committing murder? You've got to be joking! Any kind of instability like that would have shown up in psyche scans LONG ago."

"I find your faith in mechanical devices reassuringly predictable, even if it borders on the superstitious." Spock said.

"I find your *lack* of faith in your ship mates disturbing, bordering on the insulting!" McCoy retorted.

"Bones," Kirk said quietly. "Spock."

There was a moment's silence, and then McCoy sat down again. "I know you're doing your job." he said grudgingly. "Sorry, Spock."

"No offence is given if none is taken," Spock said.

For a little while all three sat without speaking. Kirk leaned back in his chair and studied his two friends. McCoy was resting his head on one hand,  
exhaustion marking his face as the anger that had carried him this far guttered out. Spock was as upright as always, his bearing showing none of the fatigue that shadowed his eyes.

"What time is it?" Kirk asked at last.

"1321 hours, captain." Spock said.

Nearly twenty three hours since Kythis had died, Kirk thought. Nearly twenty three hours since the three of them had been preparing to go off shift, perhaps play a little chess. He would have gone to Ann Ridley's quarters afterwards, and perhaps they would have made love and perhaps they would have argued. With a start of guilt, he realised he hadn't even thought to call her and tell her he wouldn't make it that evening.

"I'll stand down the search parties." Kirk said. "Those that are still working, that is. Spock, send your people off as well. "

"I have done so, Captain." Indeed, he had instructed Lieutenant Larssen to go off duty precisely seventeen minutes ago, when she had reported concluding her analysis of the phaser, with the caveat that she was to report to Lab Seven and make sure that Professor Ridley was aware of the changed rotation in Science before she retired. It had not been convenient for Spock to make the call to Ridley himself, with the briefing about to start. He was aware, however, that he found that inconvenience ... convenient. Ridley's refusal to pass his orders on to Larssen and Brand had changed the situation in Science section from an unresolved problem to something close to an emergency. The next time he spoke to the Professor, the matter would have to be resolved. If it could not be, the captain would have to know.

Spock was aware of how little he wished for that to happen.

"Delta shift can take the bridge early," Kirk said, startling Spock from his thoughts, "and then we'll go to short-staff rotation for sixteen hours. That should let everybody catch up." He reached for the comm., gave the orders, and stood up. "Bones, you're off duty as well for 12 hours. That's an order."

McCoy's expression told Kirk what he could do with his order, and Kirk smiled. "I'm going too, Bones, so stop pouting."

"I don't believe that expression should be characterised as a 'pout', Captain."  
Spock said seriously. "It would more properly be called a 'scowl', or perhaps 'glare'."

Kirk smiled, with genuine humour this time and not what Spock thought of as 'the captain's smile'. He had long since noted his captain's ability to assume a mantle of good humour and relaxation for the benefit of the morale of his crew. Spock had occasionally wondered if doing so placed an added burden on Kirk. It certainly did not afford him the relief which Spock had observed to follow from a genuine expression of emotion.

"We'll find no answers with minds bleary from sleeplessness." Kirk said. "This is a very serious problem, but not an emergency."

* * *

Larssen's hands were shaking. She rested the slide against the table, and looked up from the biospecalant unit.

"Ma'am." she said. "Ma'am, I'm going to make a mistake if I keep on with this."

She had called in to Lab Seven on Spock's orders, to make sure that Professor Ridley had heard and understood that she would have no staff available for the next forty eight hours until all Science section staff had had enough off-duty time to recover from the long duty they had pulled the day before. It had then been twenty two hours since Spock's page had pulled every scientist off regular duties and out of their beds in some cases, to join the search parties. Larssen had been on duty for thirty hours at that point and awake for thirty two.

Ridley's reaction had been predicable in nature, but of a degree Larssen had not foreseen. She had barely managed to dodge the first stool thrown at her by the Professor, had taken a nasty blow to the shoulder from the second, and had only managed to calm Ridley by agreeing to stay in the lab and finish the next urgent set of analysis.

Ridley looked set to argue, but then unexpectedly relented. "All right." she said. "Take the slides back to cryo before you go."

"Yes, ma'am." said Larssen, willing to agree to anything that might get her out of the lab without a fight. She packed the samples carefully, taking extra time to compensate for the tremor in her hands, and picked up the box. "Good night, ma'am."

"Good night." Ridley said. She watched the Lieutenant as she left, and felt guilty. It seemed as if her anger exploded more and more easily these days,  
and at targets unrelated to its cause. The poor girl had been up all night,  
and at no easy task from the grime on her uniform, and had come here as a courtesy before going for a well deserved sleep. And at that courtesy - *the courtesy Jim couldn't be bothered to do me* - Ridley had felt her simmering rage bubble over, her whole body washed by cleansing fury.

I never used to throw furniture, Ridley thought, and sat down on one of the stools that had bounced off the wall. She thought about calling Jim, and finding out what was going on, and how bad it was, and if he could comfort her ...

He'll be sleeping, she realised. He was up all night too.

She had been as well, working at a furious pace, storing up the things she'd say to Mr Spock when she had a chance, and the things she'd say *about* Mr Spock *to* Jim when she got *that* chance, and getting angrier and angrier as her staff didn't come back and it seemed clearer and clearer that something had gone badly wrong with the ship... She slammed her hands down on the bench,  
making the equipment jump slightly. Damn them all, she wished, damn that lump Larssen with her white face and her tired eyes, and damn Mr I'm-so-inscrutable Spock who you'd need a ladder to get a rise out of, and most of all damn James T Handsome Kirk and his easy smile and his laugh, without which she'd have been safe in a bed that wasn't hurtling through space tonight -

Ridley threw another chair, for good measure, and then picked up her PADD and began cross-referencing the latest sequence results with the tables from experiments run at the Vulcan Institute of Sciences the previous year ...


	7. Chapter 7

"Captain to the bridge! Captain to the bridge! Captain to the bridge!"

Kirk came out a deep sleep to find he was already on his feet and reaching for his shirt.

"Red Alert! Red Alert! Red Alert!" came the voice of Commander Iyen, officer with the conn on delta shift.

"What is it?" he snapped at the comm. unit.

"Five unidentified ships emerged out of warp, and refused to answer hails,"  
Mahase said. "Their shields are up and their weapons systems active."

"On my way." Pants on, shoes in hand, Kirk ran for the turbolift. As he balanced on one foot in the lift, pulling his shoes on, the ship rocked under the impact of fire and then gravity fluctuated as the inertial dampeners took their silicon attention away from maintaining constant gravity when confronted with the urgent need to neutralise the effect of helm's manoeuvres.

When he reached the bridge, Spock was already at the science station. Vulcans,  
Kirk thought (and not for the first time) have some special sense that allows them to be on time without having to hurry. He raked his hand through his hair after a glance at Spock's impeccably groomed head, and said:

"Captain on the bridge."

Iyen was starting his briefing as he slipped out of the centre chair. "Sir,  
still no response to our hails. One ship opened fire as it came in range, but we evaded successfully. No action since then."

The turbolift door hissed again, and Sulu and Chekov hurried out, dislodging their delta shift replacements from helm and tactical with quick mutters of relieving protocol.

"Captain," Uhura said, and Kirk realised he hadn't even noticed her come in,  
"The Vocheron Ambassador and the Sythene Ambassador want to speak to you."

"Now?" he said on an amazed breath, and then on second thoughts "Together?"

"Yes, together, sir." Uhura said, ignoring the rhetorical part of the question.

"Put them on." Kirk said. Anything which brought the Vocheron Ambassador and the Sythene Ambassador to a common cause must be important.

The viewscreen flickered, and resolved to the image of the little Sythene ambassador, phaserless now and with his biohazard suit turned off, at the side of Ambassador Tyssin.

"It is clearrrrrr," Tyssin said without preamble, "that Starfffffleet has ssssought to sssabotague peace betwween ourrrrrr peoples, with one of my aidesss foully ssslain and only Starlfeet crew to blllame for it. Thereforre,  
the Voche and the Sythene make common causse against ourrr commmmon enemies. We declare warrr upon you."

Kirk stared, the faint nausea the Vocheron still caused him driven out by a new and terrible chill. "You *what*?" he said. "Trygian, do you agree to this?"

Trygian bowed his head, but did not speak.

"The sshipss you see are oursss." Tyssin said. "Wwe are wwilling to ssacrificce our lives to brrring an end to your treachery."

"Close the channel." Kirk said abruptly, and as the ambassador vanished obedient to Uhura's commands, Kirk tapped his comm.. "This is the captain. Security Alert. Security Alert. Apprehend and restrain Vocheron and Sythene parties. They have declared themselves enemies to the Federation. All hands,  
you are authorised in this matter. Exercise caution. Report to Security Chief Tomlinson. Kirk out." He closed the channel and turned back to the tactical display.

"Positions?"

"Remaining stable."

"Mr Spock, analysis?"

"The ships are considerably smaller than the Enterprise. They are more manoeuvrable, but scan shows their warp cores are not as powerful. They are,  
however, well armed and well shielded."

"Mr Chekov, lay in a course towards the nearest Starbase."

"Laid in, sir."

"Mr Sulu, take us that way, maximum warp. Let's see if we can outrun them."

* * *

"Red Alert," came the voice over comm, and all over the ship the sirens whooped and the lighting changed to a strobing red. Larssen, on her way to her quarters from the cryo store, opened the nearest door and grabbed a takehold,  
instead. She hoped Ridley would have the sense to get everything secure that needed to be dogged down during manoeuvres. Flying specimens could make a real mess in a biolab, and it was a safe bet Ridley wouldn't be the one cleaning up.

Footsteps came pelting down the corridor and another person joined her at the take hold, panting. A tiny woman in Engineering red, she grinned up at Larssen, although she was pale beneath her tan.

"Hi," the engineer said. "Duval, Martinique, Yeoman. Won't offer to shake hands."

"Under the circumstances, very sensible," Larssen said mildly. "Larssen, Cory,  
Lieutenant. Pleased to meet you." She leaned her forehead against the takehold, and thought with passionate longing about her bed.

* * *

"They're firing!" Chekov cried, as the Enterprise shuddered on the verge of the warp field and dropped back into normal space.

'Evasive" Kirk snapped and at the same moment Sulu dropped them into a ninety degree pitch with a boost from the starboard jets to take them out of the line of fire.

"Third ship attempting to lock on!" Chekov said.

"Scatter torpedos across their bows, Mr Chekov, slow them down."

'Aye, sair."

"Scotty, what the hell was that?"

"We hae a problem with the starboard nacelle conduit, sir, but it seems to be comin' back up. Gie me a minute."

"One minute." Kirk said, not quite an order, not quite a request. "Mr Sulu,  
get us out on the wing I don't want them on each side of us."

"Aye," said Sulu at this statement of the obvious.

"Mr Chekov, fire main phaser battery as targets present themselves."

"Aye, sair!" said Checkov with a wolfish grin.

An impact somewhere in the ship, and Sulu frowned, limited in his manoeuvring by the Enterprise's bulk and by his necessary care for the fragile bodies within her. A touch to the jets and the great nose came up, giving Chekov a chance to rake one of their attackers with phasers and overload the shields on that side, but before the phasers could strike home through the opening Sulu was sending the Enterprise into a long portways role out of the line of fire coming from a ship to their rear. Another impact somewhere else, and Uhura said "Damage to engineering, sir."

"Scotty." said Kirk into the comm..

"Bohev moi." Chekov breathed. All five of the ships had suddenly come into formation, on the Enterprise's starboard side, phasars lancing out and the shields going all the way through the spectrum into coruscating white light.

It was a foolish tactic, and Chekov had photon torpedoes homing in on those ships on the instant. Two found their targets and two ships died suddenly, but at the same time -

There was a great sickening lurch, suddenly Kirk could feel that his ship wasn't moving right. From the look of Sulu's set shoulders, he was well aware of it, too.

"We have lost power from the starboard nacelle." Spock said, and over his voice the computer's automatic warning:

"Hull breach, section 24! Hull breach, section 24!"

* * *

"All hands, brace for impact," Kirk said, and Ridley wondered how that voice could sound so calm at such a time, could sound so little different from the way Kirk spoke to her when they were alone. She clutched the takehold and closed her eyes, waiting for it to be over.

That impact was the worst yet. An access panel blew out with the force of a power surge and Ridley flinched as sparks shot out. Gravity was off, then back, then lurched sickeningly before settling down - settling down WRONG, for suddenly it felt like one corner of the room was down, when the floor should be level. The inertial dampeners were failing to handle the stress, or had insufficient power to. That was bad, Ridley realised, very bad. They might be in real trouble. She could hear someone whimpering, and realised it was herself.

More jolting, she lost her footing this time and clung to the handhold. That had sounded close, closer than usual. Too close, too close, god...

The panic she had been suppressing broke over her like a tidal wave, and she staggered away from the take hold, heading for the door, listing sideways against the distorted gravity, with no idea of where she was going except to get out, get away...

* * *

"Captain, the port nacelle canna take the drain she's got!" Scotty sounded frantic. "She'll burn out in nae too much more time!"

"Understood, Mr Scott." Kirk said. "How long until we have the starboard nacelle back?"

"I canna get anyone in there with the bulkheads down, captain! My people report that -"

Static. Silence.

"Ms Uhura?" Kirk said quietly.

She was already underneath the console, providing a view of long, muscular legs that at another time Kirk might have paused to consider. "Checking now, sir. Trying to reroute through internal sensors."

"Mr Spock, assist." Kirk said, and turned back to tactical. Limping, crippled,  
and now silent, the Enterprise lumbered around and sent another shot at her pursuers. Three down.

* * *

The corridors were full of smoke and the walls were scorched where power conduits had blown. Larssen kept an eye on her tricorder as she led Duval down the corridor. The hull breach was only a bulkhead away, and she had no way of knowing if the environmental seals had worked properly under this kind of battering. Worse, they were in Engineering down here and there were deadly things contained by fragile seals and tubing.

They came around a corner and nearly ran into three crew in Engineering red,  
likewise groping their way through the smoke. Larssen saw that they were not a repair crew, but obviously had been trapped in this section as she and Duval had been. Yeoman, Yeoman, Ensign, she noted automatically, and took charge.

"Report." Larssen said.

"The bulkheads have gone down at sections 4, 14, 24 and 34." Martinique Duval said. "Tricorders show a containment integrity breach on the other side. Until they get hull integrity back up, no-one's coming or going. Intraship communications is haywire, as well."

"The conduit from the starboard nacelle is blown out." Mr Kevuthi said. "Computer indicates port nacelle overloaded, may blow. Also phaser banks on this side have shorted in two places, and first short triggered coolant leak to that section. Enviro seals have activated."

They were all looking at her with expectation. I'm not an engineer! Larssen wanted to snap. I'm not even a proper officer! I'm just a bloody great colonist who got herself into science section somehow!

She took a deep breath. "All right." she said calmly. "We have to assume that the port nacelle will overload if this continues much longer. Repair can't get in here until the bulkheads go up again, so it's down to us. How many people needed to repair the conduit?"

"Two at least." Duval said promptly. "It looks like there's a double breach,  
which means both sections will need to be kept aligned until the connection restabilises."

"What level of skill is needed?"

"Not much." Kevuthi said. "Not a tricky job, just fiddly."

"Could you talk a non-engineer - me for example - through it?"

"I could, yes." Duval said confidently. "I've done similar things in sim training, from outside the hull structure of course, but I know exactly what's needed."

"Good. I need a volunteer to go with me up the conduit. The rest of you had better suit up for the coolant and get that first phaser problem fixed. If we can get the first two problems fixed, we'll worry about the third later."

"I'll come with you up the conduit." Duval said. "But, Lieutenant, you should know - as soon as they start drawing power from that nacelle, the whole inside of that thing will be live with energy pulses."

Larssen nodded. "I guessed that." she said. "We'll just have to get in and out as fast as we can. Mr Kevuthi, you're in charge down here. Just as soon as you get that first short fixed, move on to the second. They'll see the banks come live up there, even if we can't tell them. You're not to hesitate,  
hear me?"

"Yes." he said, and through his tentacles rippled uneasily he did not argue.

"Duval and I will take two of the emergency local bank comm-units." Larssen said. "Kevuthi, you've got the third. Patching our system through to main comm. is not a high priority, but it's on the wish list. Duval, pick out what we'll need. And you -" she had to search her memory for the name - "Mr Alpse,  
get on down to the lockers at 13 and E, bring the packs back up here."

"Yes, sir." he said, and ran.

Duval had pulled two tool kits out of a locker and was strapping one around her waist. As Larssen picked up the other, the diminutive engineer said:  
"Lieutenant - you do realise - getting up and down that conduit is no piece of cake. The chance we'll be able to get out again before they need to draw power - it's not really much of a chance at all."

Her words made a little silence in the room. Then the ship rocked under impact from torpedoes, and Larssen said, loudly and steadily, "I do realise that.  
Everybody here is to understand that Duval and I know exactly what we're doing.  
When I said not to hesitate before making power available, I meant exactly what I said. It's an order. Is that clear?"

No-one spoke, but a few nodded. Larssen caught Duval's eye, and saw the smaller woman was looking at her with admiration and surprise. I've just ordered her death as well as my own, Larssen thought calmly. I wonder if she expected that?

Duval turned and ducked into the access, still screwing the local comm. into her ear as she moved. Larssen finished fastening the tool kit, set her own comm. to her ID code, gave one stern look to Kev and followed. Here we go, she thought. Here's where I get to be a hero. How unpredictable life is.

However, when she tried to follow Duval into the conduit herself, it became apparent that today was not her day for heroics. The narrow, twisting tunnel was far too small for Larssen. Even Duval was barely able to fit herself in,  
and when Larssen tried to follow her she nearly got stuck.

"Illegitimate short blonde children of promiscuous women", she said in Romulan,  
and then: "Duval," hearing her own voice over the comm. "I can't get through."

"Shit." Duval said. "I thought that might happen. It gets even worse up ahead."

"Do you think you'll be able to make it through?"

"Yes, I've seen the specs for this."

"All right. Get moving. I'll get someone smaller than me up after you."

"Yes sir," said Duval, and started climbing as Larssen backed out again. She felt as if she'd betrayed Duval, and suddenly her order not to hesitate when the chance came to restore power seemed arbitrary and ruthless. It's easy to sacrifice yourself, she thought, remembering the captain's words. It's the other people that break your heart.

Had he said that, exactly? She couldn't remember, and there wasn't time, now,  
there wasn't time for anything except the job at hand. We are time-critical,  
Lieutenant, she thought, and shook her head hard to clear the images from her head.

"Kev," she said, "I'm too big for the conduit. Can you send someone up the size of Duval?"

A moment's pause, and then the Sulamid's voice, tinny in her ear. "Smallest person here is Mr Alpse."

Larssen understood the hesitation. Alpse was smaller than she was, but not by much. She closed her eyes, visualised him standing next to Duval - "No good. Keep on with the phasers. I'll sort something out."

"Will do."

"Duval, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Duval said, and Larssen could hear the echoing of the conduit over the comm.

"Any chance you can manage that by yourself?"

Duval was silent a long moment, and Larssen fancied she could imagine the thoughts racing through the tiny ensign's head. Bad enough to crawl five hundred yards to probable death, unbearable to do it without at least one companion. But when Duval spoke, her voice was steady.

"I don't think so, Lieutenant. Understand - I'd say yes if I could. But I reckon the breaks are too far apart for me to synchronise them myself, even if I could rely on my coordination to do it."

Larssen bit her lip. "Keep going." she ordered. "I'm going to see if there's anyone sealed in here we haven't found. There might be someone narrow enough to make it."

"Okey dokey." Duval said, and Larssen had a sudden bizarre impulse to ask her where her particular brand of slang came from. Ifni, she thought to herself,  
wanting to laugh, I'm turning into Spock!

She could not give in to the impulse to laugh, however. Duval would probably misinterpret it. Instead, she grabbed a tricorder and started down the corridor, setting the instrument to scan for life signs.

* * *

The forth ship went in a blaze of light, and Kirk found himself leaning forward in his chair. There was only one ship left, and even crippled the Enterprise was more than a match for her.

"Mr Chekov-" he began, and was about to say *Fire at will* when the captain of that last ship obviously calculated the odds as Kirk had. The ship turned, and began to flee.

"Follow, sir?" Sulu said.

"No. We can't afford the strain on the engines."

"Sir," Spock said from beside the communications console, "the history of both Vocheron and Sythene warfare shows a preference for small preliminary attacks,  
followed by the main force once adequate information has been provided."

"You mean they'll come back with help?"

"The probability is 97%." Spock said.

Kirk turned towards the communications console . "Uhura ..." he said gently.

"Working on it, sir." she said, and then there was a sudden eruption of sparks from her console and Kirk was on his feet with an extinguisher in hand. The foam extinguished the electrical fire.

"Thank you." Uhura said, still beneath the console. "You might want to stand handy with that."

"Will do," Kirk said, and Uhura's foot jerked slightly in surprise. It hadn't occurred to her that it would be the captain there with the fire equipment.

I always wanted to give the captain orders, she thought wryly. Be careful what you wish for, girl...


	8. Chapter 8

Larssen opened the hatch cover and blinked in surprise. Professor Ridley was inside, curled up in a foetal position with her hands wrapped protectively over her head.

"Professor?" Larssen asked, quashing the urge to ask: What in the name of damnation are you DOING here?

"No." Ridley said softly.

"Professor Ridley, what's the matter?"

"No."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Professor, you have to come out of there."

"No."

Larssen paused. "Professor, are you a scientist?"

"No."

Dammit! Larssen had hoped that the concordance of Ridley's answers with her questions had been more than coincidence. She frowned down at the tricorder,  
hoping it would suddenly and miraculously reveal more life signs nearby. Nope,  
miracles were not going to be the order of the day. She sighed gently, slung the tricorder back at her belt, reached into the storage locker and took Ridley's shoulders.

"You're coming out now, whether you help or not." she said, and pulled.

Professor Ridley fought for a moment, and then seemed to surrender to the inevitable. When Larssen set her on her feet she stood there, one hand out to the wall for support.

"We've got a problem," Larssen told her, taking her wrist and pulling her along the corridor. "The conduit to the nacelle on this side of the ship has blown. Martinique Duval has gone up there to repair it, but the access is pretty cramped."

"Oh?" Ridley said distantly. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Larssen said composedly, "that with the other nacelle taking all the strain for shields and phasars we're at risk of an overload on that side. It may have already happened. Which leaves the ship helpless."

"That's bad, then."

"Very bad," Larssen agreed. "We need two people to repair the conduit. And everybody except Duval is too big to fit through the crawlway."

Ridley seemed to track that. "Then it can't be fixed!" she said. 'We'll die!"

They arrived at the access to the conduit.

"There's another possibility." Larssen said. "Duval is about exactly the same size as you. And she's small enough to get through."

A long pause. "You mean," Ridley said, her voice suddenly very quiet, "you want me to go up there and fix it?"

"That's exactly what I want. Duval can talk you through it."

"Oh - my - god." Ridley had gone very pale, and Larssen grabbed her by the shoulders.

'Don't you dare faint on me, Professor. Don't you dare. We need you. The ship needs you, dammit, don't you faint."

"All right." Ridley said breathlessly. "Stop shaking me. Please."

"Can you do it?"

Ridley took a deep breath, pushed her hair out of her eyes. Larssen was not asking about technical competency, she realised. It was all strangely dreamlike, as everything had been since she'd fled the science lab in search of the smallest darkest place she could hide in. "I don't know." she admitted. "I don't want to."

She remembered Larssen from her lab, a great big slow moving woman who couldn't seem to finish her sentences. At the time, Ridley had wondered if Spock had been playing some elaborate joke on her, had kept his lab stocked with idiots,  
waiting for the chance to spring them on her. Now, she realised that Corrina Larssen was not as simple as she had thought. The ship was being blown to pieces around them, they were about to be helpless in space, and while she had been hiding in a closet Corrina Larssen had been walking around doing her job.

"Duval doesn't much want to either." Larssen said. "I can't not tell you this,  
Professor, although if I felt I could lie I would. There won't be much time between the repairs and the power coming on line, and when the power comes up anyone in that conduit will be killed." Deliberately choosing the hardest word. "There's very little chance of getting out again. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Ridley swallowed hard. "I can see why Duval didn't want to go."

"She volunteered." Larssen said, and then suddenly her calmness was no longer serenity but implacable ruthlessness. "And if she hadn't, I would have ordered her."

"You can't order me," Ridley remembered with relief. "I'm a civilian. You can't order me."

"You're right. It's your choice."

"I can't go up there." She had to make Larssen understand. "I can't, I'm scared. I can't do it."

She found herself pulled around to face the access hatch. A tool kit was put in her hand, a local comm. in her ear.

"It's your choice." Larssen said. "I have things I have to do, while you're making that choice. But while you do, think about this. If that break isn't repaired, we'll all die, you included. I'd be up there myself, but I'm too broad across the shoulders. And if I had the authority, I *would * order you to do this, but I can't. I can only ask."

Ridley looked up at Larssen's face, and realised that she was telling the truth.

"You're not giving me much of a choice, here." Ridley said, and her voice had the shake that Larssen had always feared in the lab, that slight tremor that preceded an explosive outburst of temper. "You're not giving me much of a damn choice, here! How DARE you! How DARE you ask me to go up there and - and - and fiddle around with the engine! THAT'S NOT MY JOB, DAMN YOU!" She saw with distant satisfaction that Larssen had stepped back. "This is YOUR problem,  
YOUR damn Starfleet problem and I refuse to put MY life at risk because you can't do your goddamn job! To hell with it, and to hell with you, and to HELL with Starfleet if it's filled with clumsy incompetents like you! HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME A CHOICE LIKE THIS!"

Larssen stared at her. How on earth could the woman find the time for such fury when they were all about to be blown to vacuum? Professor Ridley was incandescent with rage, shaking with it, consumed by her anger. It was as if she was so filled with righteous wrath that there was no room in her mind for concern about their common fate, for sense, for comprehension, or for fear.

Oh, Ann. Larssen thought, realising. There are better ways to deal with fear than this one. As if someone had taken her memories of the past weeks and shown them to her through a prism, she understood that it wasn't temper, it had never been temper. It was fear. All along, Ann Ridley had been afraid, afraid of being on the ship, afraid of the deep dark beyond the hull, afraid of the decision she'd made, living with a constant gnawing terror that she couldn't stand. Oh, Larssen thought, oh Ann, I wish I had realised, I could have helped you, forgive me for not understanding...

Nothing of her thoughts showed on her face. She gave the smaller woman a little push towards the access. "If I could," she said, "I'd give you no choice at all. I have to go now. You're on my comm., better tell Duval who you are if you go up there. I have to go. Do it right, Professor."

Her footsteps faded away, fast but not hurrying. Ridley couldn't have looked away from the access to watch Corrina Larssen leave if her life had depended on it. I'm not brave, she wanted to cry out. I'm not brave! I'm not heroic! What the hell am I doing here!

She might have stood there until the ship blew apart around her if she hadn't become aware of a woman's voice in her ear.

"Lieutenant," it was saying. "Lieutenant, please answer. Lieutenant- "

"She can't hear you," Ridley whispered into the mike.

"What?"

"She can't hear you. She gave the comm. to me."

"Who's me?" the voice asked, and Ridley could sympathize with the exasperation in the it.

"Ann Ridley." she said.

"Why did she give you the comm.?"

Ridley knew suddenly who the voice was. It was Duval, whoever Duval was, and Duval was currently up in that conduit fixing whatever it was that needed to be fixed. Alone.

"Because I'm small." Ridley said abruptly. "You'll have to tell me what to do.  
I'm a civilian."

"Are you in the conduit?"

There was a long silence. At the other end, Duval could hear faint sounds like movement. Finally, Ridley's voice returned, echoing slightly with the narrow space around her.

"Yes, I am," Ridley said, her voice shaking wildly. "Which way do I go?"

"Only way is up, baby." Duval said, and chuckled. Slowly and carefully, Ridley began to climb.

* * *

It was nonsense, Kirk knew, to imagine that he could feel the ship *listing* as he sat in the Captain's chair, but somehow the knowledge that they were without power, without shields or weapons or even the ability to move, made him imagine that the Enterprise was slowly sinking.

Chekov and Sulu sat at their useless consoles. If Scotty couldn't get the power up, the helm and weapons officers would be able to inform the rest of the bridge crew that they were under attack, but not to do anything about it. Their hapless jobs would be to count down the seconds until the Enterprise made a brief, bright flare against the backdrop of stars. Nonetheless, neither showed any nervousness, although the back of Chekov's shirt was dark with sweat. So is mine, Kirk, thought ruefully.

Uhura was still stretched out below the communications console, invisible from the waist up. Something shorted and fizzed and she swore with verve, and then,  
muffled, asked Spock a question. Spock replied calmly, having cross-rigged the communications console to science station to facilitate diagnostic readings.

It felt odd to have nothing to do while the ship was in crisis. It had happened before, of course, but rarely, and Kirk realised (as he did every time) that this must be how the engineers, the scientists, the security teams and the stores staff and all the rest of the crew must feel every time the Enterprise went into combat. Knowing that everything that mattered was happening somewhere else. Knowing that their continued existence was completely in the hands of a small group of people who they couldn't see or hear, whose expertise they couldn't witness.

More than anything, Kirk wanted to give Spock the conn and go down to Engineering and see if there was something he could do. Hand Scotty his screwdrivers or something. He had a sudden understanding of why McCoy so often appeared on the bridge in the middle of a tense situation: the urge to at least be where you could *see* what was going on must be overwhelming. And at the moment, they couldn't even follow the progress of the repairs on comm.

There was another spark beneath the communications console and Uhura backed out in a hurry, shaking her hand. Spock sprayed the small conflagration with the extinguisher. Grimly, Uhura hauled herself back out of sight.

* * *

Larssen came down the corridor in Starfleet double time, fast as a jog but no appearance of panic. The engineers were standing or kneeling by the double doors to the phaser bank section.

"Coolant leak this sector," Kev said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the plasma torch Alpse was using to cut through a safety seal. "Have to cut seal, then suit up and go in."

"All right. Do we have enough suits?"

"No, only three."

It was impossibly dangerous to go into coolant without suits and breathers. The gas would burn anything it came into contact with - exposed skin, the membranes of the nose, the throat and lungs if breathed. "Right," Larssen said,  
"You, Quandt, and me." She took the suits from him, selected the one closest to her size, and began pulling it on.

"Not sensible, Lieutenant." Kav said. "Need as many trained as we can. Me,  
Quandt and Alpse."

Larssen stopped and looked at him. "Can't you talk me through it?"

"Better, faster, with Alpse." Kev said, and she knew he was right. There was suddenly a knot of fury in her stomach so tight she could barely breathe. How many people could she reasonably be expected to send into danger while staying safely on the sidelines! This was absurd!

"Illegitimate short blonde children of promiscuous old women," she murmured in Romulan. "You'll need to keep the comm.."

"Yes. Suggest you try to patch intraship while we work."

"All right. How long will this take?"

"Fast as possible," he said with morbid humour, "or not at all." One tentacle pushed her towards a nearby door. "Comm station there. Also window on phasar lock bank. You can watch and work. Less nervous."

"Less nervous, right." Larssen said, and turned to go.

"Lieutenant," he said, "Duval reports she and Ridley expect completion in ten minutes."

My god, she went up there! Larssen thought. She felt a sudden surge of admiration for the Professor. I was prepared to go, but I wasn't all that scared. She's prepared to go even though she's shaking with terror. "Tell them - tell them I congratulate their bravery and we'll give them as much time as we can." She turned and went to the comm.  
station.

* * *

"Can you see the blown unit?" Duval asked.

"What does it look like?" Ridley said.

"Blown!" Duval said, and then sighed. "Sorry. It'll have some black stuff on the outside, that will come off when you touch it."

"I've got it." Ridley said. The fingers that were now smeared with black residue were trembling.

"Pull it out. Just take the edges and yank."

"Okay, I have it." It was possible, Ridley found, to keep from screaming if she kept from thinking. If she held her mind very still, and kept from any awareness of where she was and what she was doing, and just followed each of Duval's instructions without following them to their terrifying conclusion.

"Put it in your kit. Don't drop it, I don't want any more patching to do."

"Okay."

"Now, take the replacement out."

There was a small silence. "What does that look like?" Ridley asked.

"Like a -" Duval started, and then paused. "Like the other one, but without black stuff, and in a clear whitish case with green markings." she said.

"Okay, I got it."

"Don't put it in yet. We have to co-ordinate this or the new unit will blow when the circuit's linked."

"Okay." said Ridley, pretending she knew what that meant. If she thought about it, she might understand. Right now, however, thinking what the last thing she could risk doing.

* * *

"Sir, we're partially patched in to the local comm. system. I've got Mr Scott on." Uhura's voice was muffled, as she had not stopped work even for a moment.

"Bless you," Kirk said fervently. "Mr Scott, can you hear me?"

"Aye, Captain."

"What's our status?"

"We're nae doin' so good, sir. The port nacelle overloaded with the power drain and we've nae much chance of getting' her back up in less that three hours. I hae crews tryin' to get access to the starboard nacelle conduit, we hae a major blow-out there, it looks like we took a direct hit in that last pass of theirs. Section seals are down all the way through to the access for that section, though. I've a few missin' crew that might be in there, but no way to contact them."

"Understood, Scotty. We've no way of knowing how much time we have until they come back. We'll be waiting to hear from you."

"Aye sir. Scott out."

"Uhura. Priority on getting Scotty cross-patched into whatever local comms are stored in sections 20 through 24."

"Yes, sir." she said. "Mr Spock, can you piggyback the beta backup system onto the automated alarms?"

"I can try." Spock said calmly.

"Don't worry about the circuit interloop on the override system. Work from the comm. numbers I'm sending you outward. I should be able to bring the engineering local interface up to a point where you'll intersect." She paused.  
"Hikaru, if you aren't doing anything else, get up here and hand me a length of four ply coline wire and a double set of clips."

Sulu looked at Kirk, who nodded. Chekov shifted position as the helmsman got up, to keep an eye on both tactical displays.

Something shorted under the communications console again and Uhura yelped, and then said quickly: "I'm fine, Captain. Just surprised." There was the tremor of pain in her voice, and Kirk winced at how close her face and eyes must be to the damaged circuits. Be careful, he wanted to say, but that wasn't the priority. Be quick, that was the important thing, and try to stay alive while you're doing it, if you can. But only if it doesn't slow you down.

He stood up, because there was nothing else for him to do.

* * *

Larssen was so keyed to the work of the repair team that when Alpse slumped to the floor she swung around on the instant. The great bizarre figure in protective gear that was Kevuthi hesitated a bare instant and went on with his work; Yeoman Quandt didn't even look around. Their expressions were obscured by the helmets they wore, but Larssen could see in the set of their bodies that they were in a terrible hurry. It was clear from the way they worked, fast and accurate and without time for thought.

Alpse moved a little, and Larssen could see there was a gap in his suit just below the armpit. The coolant must have leaked in before he realised... she was at the makeshift environmental seal before she thought of moving, stepping into the tiny airlock, punching the override as the outer shut behind her with a hand that didn't shake at all. As the light flashed to warn her that the inner door was about to open she filled her lungs and closed her eyes.

The coolant was heavy and oily against her skin and she groped forward as quickly as she could. Three steps from the door, four -

* Five. Something dark distinguishing itself from the snow. She reached one hand forward and touching something solid: a relay post, hard and smooth and metal. *

Five, and her outstretched hand touched something solid, the protective suit slippery beneath her fingers. She seized hold and began to back towards the door, for one horrifying moment thinking she had missed it and her air was nearly out, her lungs were aching - and the seal bumped beneath her foot and she had Alpse over the doorsill and found the controls blind.

Air hissed around them as the coolant was pushed out but Larssen knew that she didn't dare open the outer door with coolant still trapped inside Alpse's suit.  
She waited until she could no longer feel ropes of airborne coolant trailing greasily across her face, her lungs burning, hurting for air, and then let herself gasp, opening her eyes.

As fast as she could, she tore open Alpse's suit, and coolant sluggishly drifted out, over her hands, before being sucked into the emergency pressure lock's vents. When she got the helmet off Larssen thought she might faint, her vision greying, for beneath the faceplate Alpse's skin was a mass of burns, his eyes swollen shut. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth. Somehow she got the rest of the suit off him and the green light for clear went.

Open the door, Larssen thought to herself. Open the door, take him by the arms, drag him out, that's right, don't look at his face, find the medkit-

"Can you hear me?" she asked, her voice warm and unflustered. "Can you hear me? You're out, Alpse. I've got you. I'm here."

The medical tricorder suggested treatments and she followed those suggestions blindly. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE EVACUATION TO SICKBAY, it also suggested, and that Larssen couldn't do. She turned Alpse on his side to ease his blood choked breathing and then went back to the window to check on the other two. Both were still upright and working with intense concentration. Larssen went back to Alpse.

"We'll get you to sickbay as soon as we can," she promised. "Just hang on. I'm here. Just hang on."

His breathing was laboured, with a strange liquid sound that made Larssen want to shudder. They had to get this task done, and then the relay that had burnt out had to be replaced, and then, if the nacelle conduit was fixed, the Enterprise would be able to run if she needed and fight if she had to. She didn't need to look at her chrono to know that time was slipping away. Apprehension settled over her, making her skin feel tight and brittle, blurring her vision.

I'm scared, she thought. This is not useful.

With an effort, she pushed the fear away until she could think again, but the feel of it stayed on her face, as if any expression would tear the skin.


	9. Chapter 9

"Any one who can hear this, reply to me please." The familiar Scottish burr filled Ridley with relief. Montgommery Scott was a legend even among civilians, the man who had saved the day on so many occasions that the term 'miracle worker' was only half a joke. He'll get us out of this, she thought. He'll find a way to get us out of this without having to finish this ridiculous repair job halfway up a tube a trained monkey would have trouble with! She relaxed, leaning her head against the side of the conduit, and allowed herself to believe she would live through this.

"Mr Scott," Duval said. "very good to hear your voice, sir. Is intraship back?"

'Nay, Uhura is doin' all she can for it, but she's patched me through to the local system from here."

"Mr Scott, you should have power to the starboard nacelle in two minutes."

"And how have ye done that, lassie?"

"Professor Ridley and I are in the conduit." She did not need to say more.

"Ah, lass." A pause. "When ye finish, get yourselves down to the top of the fourth linkages. There's an access there, a beastly little crawlway that doesn't go anywhere in particular, but the seal's sound. I'll gie ye all the time I can, lass."

"Appreciated, sir." Duval said. "Duval out."

* * *

Yeoman Quandt's expression was easy to read when she came out of the lock and looked at Alpse on the floor: horror. Kevuthi was more difficult, Sulamids lacking most of what humanoids called "a face", but his tentacles shifted and twined with unease.

"Suit caught on power coupling," he said. "Not time to warn."

"We've got to get him to sickbay!" Quandt said. She went to the nearest terminal and scanned it. "Damage reports show that integrity has been restored to the section beyond ours. We can jury rig the doors and force them..."

"We have a job to do first," Larssen said, and Quandt stared at her.

"But he - "

"I know." Larssen said. "There's a power relay to be replaced first. The sooner we get that done, the sooner we can get Alpse to sickbay. How many do we need for the replacement?"

"Three." said Kevuthi sombrely.

Larssen looked at them. "Then it's a good thing there's three of us." she said calmly, and after a moment Quandt nodded, swallowing hard. "You'll have to talk me through what's needed, my experience is mostly with small mechanical and lab equipment."

"Not too dissimilar." Kevuthi said.

"Good. Let's go." She bent quickly to Alpse, "Mr Alpse, we have to get the phasar relay replaced. We'll be back very soon to take you to sickbay. Hang on." She didn't know whether he heard her or not, and her eyes smarted with the threat of tears as she stood, her face hurting with the effort to keep it expressionless.

As Kevuthi led them down the corridor towards the phasar relay units, he looked back to where Alpse lay, and following, so did Quandt. Larssen looked straight ahead.

* * *

'We're done." Duval said. "Let's go. Down, Ann, down."

Ridley began to lower herself, then stopped. "I don't know where I'm going,"  
she said frantically. "I don't know where I'm going, I don't -"

"Hold on. Hold on. Hold still." Duval said, and after a minute Ridley heard the other woman's boots on the ladder. "I'm going to slide past you here. Press yourself against the wall."

A few terrifying moments as Ridley clung to the ladder and Duval inched her way past in inadequate space. At one point it seemed as if they would get stuck,  
and then Duval said "Breathe *out*, Ann." and suddenly slipped past.

"Now just follow me, as fast as you can."

As fast as she could was not very fast for Ridley. I'm not a soldier, she said to herself, trying to be angry. I'm not a soldier, I'm not trained for this, I shouldn't have to be here. Duval was well ahead of her now, the vibrations of her movement down the ladder diminishing.

"Ann?" came the voice on the comm.

"Yes?"

"I'm about fifteen feet below you. I'll wait here."

"No," Ridley said. "Wait at the access. I'll just keep going until I hit you."

The minute the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. Duval was started moving again, years of practice at clambering around rarely accessed parts of starships coming to her aid, and soon there wasn't even the faintest sound or movement to tell Ridley she was not alone in the dark of the conduit.

I hate all of them, she thought, all the brave people. I hate them for making me do this.

But the familiar spark of anger did not come. She was only cold, and alone, in the dark, and it was a long way down.

* * *

"Got it," Quandt said. "Just hold it a moment more, Lieutenant."

"Uh-huh" Larssen gasped. Her arms and back ached from holding the heavy coupling flush with its mount, and she was sweating so hard it felt that her face and hands were on fire and her vision blurred with effort. Quandt matched the connections up and began to set the fastenings. Larssen noticed that Kevuthi, at the other end of the coupling, was holding up hir burden without apparent effort.

"In my next life-" she panted, "-I want - to be - a Sulamid."

An eyesheaf turned in her direction. "Depends." Kevuthi said. "Need high karma to skip straight from human to Sulamid in one re-incarnation. Perhaps you should set sights lower."

"Thanks." Larssen said. "Such as?"

"How can you *joke*?" Quandt snapped, not taking her eyes from her work. 'How *can* you?"

"It makes - the coupling lighter." Larssen said.

"It's not going to make Alspe any better!"

"Not make him any worse, either." Kevuthi said. "Quandt."

She set the last fastening, and spun around, but when she met Larssen's eyes the anger faded from her face and her shoulders slumped. "All right." she said. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. You went in after him, and there's those who wouldn't have."

Larssen nodded, wiping stinging sweat from her face. There was a smear of blood on her hand when she took it away. The effort of lifting the coupling must have started a nose bleed. She sniffed.

"Let's go." she said. "Next stop, sickbay."

* * *

"Captain!" Chekov cried. "Ships dropping out of warp! Five - six - nine -  
eleven -"

"Get me engineering." Kirk said.

"Scott here." the engineer's voice responded as Uhura unhooked one jury-rigged system to plug in another.

"Scotty, I need that power! We have ships closing!"

"How long can ye gie me, captain?"

Kirk looked at tactical.

"They'll be in range in 45 seconds." he said. "Scotty..."

"Aye, sir."

The engineer cut the connection, switched the comm. channel over and hit the keys for Uhura's ingenious improvised extension of local comm. capabilities.

"Lassies," he said, " I hae ta gie the captain power! Are ye clear?"

"I'm in the crawlway," Duval reported, and before she could say anything further, Ridley cut in:

"And so am I, Mr Scott." Her voice was choked, and Scott could hear the slight echo that told him she was in a very confined space. More confined than, say,  
Crawlway 32.

All he said was "Aye, lass. Seal the access. I need to bring her up."

Duval swung the access hatch closed and spun the lock, and forty feet away up the conduit Ridley heard the clang and closed her eyes.

Oh, it's not fair, she thought, not fair, I'm so scared, it's not fair. I'm a coward, that's supposed to keep you safe, I should never have come on this damn ship with these brave people, I'm so scared and it's brave people who are the ones who are supposed to die, it's not fair, oh, it's not fair...

Oh, Jim.

She had expected pain. She didn't have enough time to notice that there wasn't any.

* * *

"Lieutenant!" Kevuthi shouted, one tentacle wrapped around the comm.. "Ships dropping out of warp!"

They would need their phasers, they would need the power... Larssen felt the knowledge in her chest as if she'd swallowed an ice-cube, and she turned and ran up the corridor, the others behind her. No Starfleet double-time here. She ran flat out as if the exit for hell was ahead of her and the doors were closing. Skidding on the corner, she lunged for the access hatch. She could get into the first section before it narrowed and she filled her lungs and yelled the names.

"Marty! Marty! Ann!"

Of course, they could not hear her. She ducked back out. "Get them on the comm.!"

Kevuthi spread his tentacles helplessly. "Lost." he said mournfully. Larssen spat a curse in a voice that didn't sound like her own and turned back to the crawlway.

"Marty!" she screamed into the conduit. "Marty!"

"We have to seal it!" Quandt had her by the waist and was wrestling her away from the access. "We have to seal it, Lieutenant, or we'll all go!"

"Just - let me - give me a minute - give them time - let - GO, DAMMIT!"

"We don't have a minute," Quandt told her, and to another person Larssen couldn't see, "Seal it, Kev."

"Need order to seal." Kevuthi said

The access stood open, the Sulamid waiting beside it, one handling tentacle on the drop bar. "Lieutenant, give the order!" Quandt urged her. "Give the order!"

"Let me go." Larssen said unsteadily. "Let me go, that's your order." The restraining arms fell away. She reached out to the conduit access, put one hand on the cover and swung it shut, pushing the drop bar home.

"Not your job, Mr Kevuthi." she told him. "Not even with order."

Larssen could feel the metal of the hatch begin to vibrate as the power came up, and then the room was filled with the roaring of the working nacelle. Inside that conduit, Larssen knew, was now a howling maelstrom of pure power,  
inimical to mortal flesh. Whatever was left of Martinique Duval and Ann Ridley was in there as well.

"Let's go." she said. "It's up to them upstairs now. Let's see if we can get Alpse to sickbay before the ship blows up again."

They found the missing comm. in the corridor, where Kev had dropped it in his haste. Larssen picked it up, wondering dully if it would have made any difference, if she could have stood to hear the last words of the two women. She screwed it in her ear.

"Please respond -" she heard. "Anyone hearing this, please respond."

"Duval!" she cried, and around her heads snapped around.

"Lieutenant." Duval's voice was dry, but the relief in it was evident. "I'm in a spot of bother."

You're alive! Larssen wanted to shout. "You and Ridley?" she asked instead.

A pause. "No." Duval said softly, sadly. "She didn't make it. She told Mr Scott she had - but -"

"Understood." Larssen said, and shook her head for the benefit of the other crew watching.

"I'm in the three two crawlway." Duval said. "I can't back up with the nacelle on line, and it's pretty beat up in here. I'm trying to work my way up to the exit, but we're missing a lot of handholds. Can someone drop a rope or something?"

"Hang on," Larssen told her, and to the rest, "Three two crawlway. Where do we get in."

"Not sure," said Kev, opening his tricorder and pulling up blueprints. "Don't remember any access this section."

They looked at the tricorder, and came to same conclusion.

"Duval," Larssen said, "There's no hatch this side of the bulkheads. Work up to A deck and we'll get someone up there to meet you."

"We're back on intraship?"

Larssen couldn't lie. "Not yet. But soon."

"Okay. But Lieutenant, if you could hurry, I'd appreciate it. If we loose inertials, I'm jam."

"Understood. We're on it. Larssen out."

She clicked the mike off, turned to Kev. 'I need intraship, and I need it ten minutes ago. Work me a miracle, Mr Kevuthi."

"Yes, sir!" he said.


	10. Chapter 10

Behind him, Spock heard Uhura say, "Understood, Mr Kevuthi. Bridge out." When she did not relay information to the Captain, Spock understood it was not urgent enough to disturb those immediately involved in the combat. He crossed to the communications station, and raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

"The team trapped in down near the staboard nacelle access managed to restore power," she said softly. "Ensign Duval went up the conduit for repairs. She got out before the power went on, but she's in the three two crawlway and in trouble. The only access near her location is on this level, but - " Her spread hand indicated the urgency of the bridge crew's current tasks, and at that moment an impact rocked the ship.

Spock steadied himself on the back of her chair. "I am not needed here at the moment." he said. "Reassure Mr Kevuthi that I will assist Ms Duval."

As she said "Yes, sir," he turned and strode from the bridge.

It was fortunate that Ms Duval had managed to climb to a position close to the access, and was clinging to the handholds almost directly opposite the hatch. Spock had had doubts about the advisability of attempting to climb any distance down the crawlway to assist her with the gravity fluctuations that were currently occurring. He leaned through the access hatch and stretched towards her.

It was fortunate that Ms Duval had managed to climb to a position close to the access, and was clinging to the handholds almost directly opposite the hatch. Spock had had doubts about the advisability of attempting to climb any distance down the crawlway to assist her with the gravity fluctuations that were currently occurring. He leaned through the access hatch and stretched towards her.

"Take my hand, yeoman." he said, and it was only the unbelievable, mundane calm of his voice that enabled her to let go of the ladder with one hand and stretch out over the shaft to place it in his. "Well done. Now, you must -"

Whatever he was going to say was lost in her scream as the Enterprise snapped into a pitch and yaw manoeuvre that further stressed the inertial dampeners and her grip on the rung came loose. For an instant she hung, supported by Spock's grip and her toehold on the wall of the shaft, pawing at the ladder in an effort to take hold again and then the delicate balance gave and she fell.

Spock closed his hand on hers and locked the other around the edge of the hatch. Her whole weight plus the gravity of the manoeuvre pulled at his arm and he hit the ground hard, head and shoulders over the empty blackness of the shaft. The sinews of his arm and shoulder cracked as he struggled to keep from being pulled over the lip of the hatch. Duval's overwhelming terror roared through him and he sealed his mind to it, focusing only on the strength of his grip. Her mind was a blur of images, the conduit, Larssen sliding into the access behind her, the whomph of power turned on and horror at the woman still behind...

"Oh, god," she was sobbing, "Oh, god, oh, god..."

Spock shut off his sudden realisation that there had been two crew in the conduit, and only Duval had escaped. He did not think about the image of Corrina Larssen climbing into the crawlway behind Duval. He thought only of holding that small, sweaty hand in his and keeping hold of the edge of the hatch.

He realised he could not last much longer if the ship continued to move. Already the metal edge of the hatch had scraped the skin from his palm and his grip was growing slippery with blood. His voice only a little ragged with strain, he said:

"See if you can reach the ladder with your foot, Yeoman."

She strained for it, but could not reach, and the movement made her hand slip a little in his. Her panic was overwhelming. Spock felt it battering at his shields with the force of mindlessness, and he knew that if he let it in he would lose himself in it, would have no thought or reason but the vast fear of the dark tunnel below.

"You must be calm," he said. "Be still, Yeoman, do not struggle."

Duval kept trying to find a foothold on the walls of the tube and each effort made his grip more precarious, placed more strain on the screaming muscles of his arms and back.

"Yeoman," he said, and her hand slid again in his and he was holding her only by the most tenuous of grips. She screamed in terror and her fear came roaring at him like a star gone nova.

Later he would know that his reaction was the only logical one, the one he would have chosen had he time to consider his actions and chose the best option available to him, but at the time he did not think. Out of sheer instinctive self-preservation he reached out his mind, the driving force of his will and absence of any thought in Duval's mind making it possible to form for an instant a link. As his shields began to crumble under the force of her terror he touched her consciousness and pinched it out.

The sudden inner silence was like deafness. Duval hung by his precarious hold on her fingers, head down, completely limp.

The Enterprise seemed to be running steady at the moment, and Spock took the chance that provided. He let go of the edge of the hatch and reached down to get hold of Duval's arm before his grip on her fingers gave. Her head lolled as he pulled her up, getting her over the edge of the hatch with more haste than gentleness and getting the hatch cover safely sealed as a precaution against further manoeuvres before he turned to her.

She was breathing. He touched her face and felt the life within her -  
unconscious. Not dead. Not damaged. That was gratifying.

His right hand was bleeding from the lip of the hatch. It would be informative, he thought, to ascertain at a later time what the inertial force had been during those manoeuvres, to calculate more precisely the limits of his strength.

Spock went to the comm. and keyed for the bridge.

"Sir," Uhura said, "We've outrun them. We're running stable for the moment."

"Yeoman Duval requires medical attention." he said. "Unless I am needed on the bridge, I will take her to sickbay."

"Spock," another voice cut in, a familiar one. "I'm on my way there myself. McCoy wants me down there, there's a coolant case - bad -" Kirk paused slightly. "I'm on my way. I'll hold the lift at two for you."

"Understood, Captain. Spock out."

Before he bent to lift Duval, he touched another combination of keys.

"Computer, whereabouts of Lieutenant Larssen?"

"Unknown."

"Computer, local comm. units keyed to ID of Lieutenant Larssen."

"Local comm. 32 engineering."

"Computer whereabouts of comm. 32 engineering?"

It seemed to take the computer longer than usual to respond, and when it did the electronic voice seemed slower. "That comm. is not operational." the computer said with regret.

Spock stood still.

_Master your emotions, lest they master you,_ his father's voice said.

He wondered if Larssen had appreciated the irony of her survival of the rigours of ice of Ser Etta Five, only to die in fire aboad the ship. Had she had time to consider it? Or had she believed, to the last moment, that she too would survive? Spock was not sure which to hope for. He himself would prefer to have at least a short time to prepare for death, but Larssen had been herself, and perhaps she would have wanted to be taken quickly, unaware. Spock hoped merely that whichever she had sought had been the end meted out to her.

Spock stooped to raise Yeoman Duval in his arms, his back protesting. He ignored it. The pain was of no significance. He had duties to attend to.

* * *

Kirk looked around the bridge. Despite the burns and bruises she had got working under her console to restore intraship while the ship lurched through Sulu's crazy manoeuvres, Uhura was working steadily, patching through requests for help and damage reports and casualty lists. Sulu sat back in his seat, his shirt soaked with sweat, while Chekov monitored the sensors as if not entirely convinced the enemy was gone.

"Mr Chekov, you have the conn." Kirk said, and turned to Uhura. "Ms Uhura, can you hold on there until Mr Mahese gets here?"

"Yes, captain." she said. "This looks worse than it is."

Kirk doubted her, but her job was crucial at the moment. "I'll send medical up here as soon as they've got time," he told her, "and you can tell Mr Mahese from me that he's to hurry."

"Thank you." she said, and smiled.

When the lift stopped on two, Spock was already waiting. He stepped in,  
impassive, as if an unconscious crewmember was no more significant than a piece of equipment that needed to be transported.

"Is she - will she be -"

"She will recover completely, Captain." Spock said. "Her lack of consciousness is not the result of physical trauma." And he looked straight ahead at the turbolift wall, discouraging further questions.

At sickbay, Kirk stood back to let Spock enter first. Lia Burke met him at the door, directed him to place Duval on a biobed, listened to something he told her and nodded. As Kirk stepped through the door Spock was straightening,  
turning back to the door to fall in to his usual place behind his captain's shoulder. Kirk took another step, and noticed three things. He would later remember noticing them, clearly, precisely, because they were the last things that happened before - before ...

One. A crewmember in an engineering uniform on a diagnostic bed who had obviously been caught in a coolant leak, so burned it was impossible to tell what species ze was, let alone make an identification.

Two. Spock hesitating slightly as they went through the door, so that Kirk felt a slight space opening between them, just a little more than the usual distance when Spock was with him.

Three. A tall woman in science blue, lieutenant j-g pips on the collar, a mass of brown hair coming loose and bubbling burns on face and hands. Christine Chapel spraying something on them.

And then -

"Sir, we've accounted for all missing except for Ann Ridley."

It was an engineering crew member talking to Scotty, who sat by the figure on the bed. Yeoman Darcy, Kirk though her name was, Yeoman Mary Darcy, and he tried to remember when she'd come aboard, when he'd last seen her, because if he concentrated on trying to remember he wouldn't understand what she'd said,  
wouldn't understand the way that Scotty closed his eyes at her words, wouldn't understand why no-one moved or spoke or turned to him to explain -

Spock was close behind him again now, so close Kirk could feel the higher body temperature of the Vulcan like radiant heat against his back.

"Try the starboard nacelle conduit." said the woman with the burned face and hands, and her voice was steady and calm. Larssen, Kirk identified, Lieutenant (junior grade) Corrina Larssen, he knew that voice, and where had coolant leaked that science personnel would be in the way of it, where had - the nacelle conduit -

"Jim."

Spock had him by the elbow, and for a moment Kirk thought he would fall despite that inhumanly strong grip. Then there was a chair behind him, and Bones' hand on his shoulder, pressing him down. Kirk sat.

"What-" he said, and cleared his throat, "what -"

"There was an overload blow out when containment went on that side." Scotty said. "I'm aye sorry, captain. The wee professor was with Duval gettin' the power back for us."

"What-" There were so many questions he had to ask. "What was *she* doing fixing it?"

"She was small enough." Larssen said. "It's narrow up there. I sent her and Duval because they were small enough."

"I'm aye sorry, captain." Scotty said again, a terrible grief in his voice. "We had tae hae power. We *had* to. She said she was clear but I knew she wasn't, sir, but we had tae hae the power. I'm aye sorry. I'm aye sorry."

Kirk looked at him, and then at Larssen, who held herself as if waiting for a blow. I killed her, captain, she had been saying, and Scotty too. We killed her, captain, they said, and waited for the blame.

"I see." Kirk said at last, when he had his voice under control. "I know that you wouldn't have - I know that you both did what you had to." It was very hard to say, but he knew that somewhere, on the other side of this greyness that had engulfed him, he would know that it was the truth. He wanted to blame them, hell, he *did* blame them, but at the same time he knew that it wasn't fair to do so. He did not have the luxury of giving in to the selfish impulse to hurt them for what they'd done.

He was their captain, they were his people. That sounds so simple, he thought wildly, and it's so hard.

"I know that you did what was necessary." he said, and saw across a great distance that Larssen closed her eyes and lowered her head as if receiving a benediction.

An absolution.

Kirk got to his feet and walked to the diagnostic bed. His legs held him; his hand was steady when he laid it on the shoulder of the figure on the bed. "Mr Alspe?" he said. "This is your captain. We're out of danger. You did it." Then, aside to McCoy, "Can he hear me?"

"Hear - c'tain." Alpse responded for himself.

Kirk bent closer to the ruined face. "Well done, Mr Alpse." he said. "The ship owes you her life, and the lives of all aboard."

"Starfleet..." Alpse whispered. "that's ... job d'sc'ption."

McCoy laid his hand over Kirk's, and Kirk realised that Alpse wouldn't speak again.

He straightened slowly, looked up and saw Larssen still looking at him. There was no way to read an expression on that scorched visage, in those bloodshot eyes. You killed Ann, he couldn't help thinking, but he could certainly prevent the thought showing. He reached out, touched Larssen's arm gently. "You did your job." he told her, and smiled.

"Thank you, sir." Larssen said. She watched him leave, Spock beside him like his shadow, and she couldn't tell where the pain from her burns ended and the pain in her heart started. *That* was the captain. *That* was the yardstick.

She would have killed for him then: or died, if he'd so much as asked.

"Come on." Christine Chapel said to her gently. "Come and sit down. Let's get you looked at."

Larssen went with her, allowed herself to be moved and treated and made to lie down. Her body felt distant from her, a strange source of pain and weariness. Her vision blurred and greyed as McCoy sprayed something in her eyes. The last thing she saw was the doctor's tired face, his keen eyes sad. Did you see that? she wanted to ask him. Did you see him? He's the *captain*.

A hypospray hissed against her neck.

Sleep took her down.


	11. Chapter 11

"That was one hell of a lucky shot, to take out the nacelle conduit like that!"  
Chekov said as he entered the room. He looked tired, and grim, but mostly he looked angry, and the ragged gash that ran from temple to jaw and was only recently sealed with permaskin gave him a dangerous, feral air. Kirk remembered when Chekov had first come aboard. He had been so young!

The man now seating himself at the table was a seasoned veteran, tried and proven under fire. And beside him, Sulu, moving carefully and favouring his left leg, a contained rage in every inch of his bearing.

Kirk turned his head tiredly. Spock, at the end of the table near the briefing console, was just Spock. Perhaps he was more Spock-like than usual. Uhura was liberally patched with permaskin that was an ugly pink contrast to her skin, and she was leaning her head on her hands as if sitting upright was beyond her. McCoy, at the other end of the table, was slouched back in his chair in his usual attitude. He was uninjured, and seemed to have taken time for a shower and shave before the briefing, unlike the others. His clothes were fresh, his hair neat, his eyes closed in a attitude of boredom. Just above his eyebrow, where the sonic had somehow missed it, was a dash of blood.

Kirk wondered how much he had washed off.

McCoy opened his eyes, caught Kirk looking at him, and looked away.

"At that point, fire from all three ships was focused on the point. It was enough to overload the shield - briefly - and the damage was done." Spock said.

"So they planned it," Kirk said. "Carefully." He passed on hand over his face as if he could wipe away the past twenty-six hours.

"There are anomalies." Spock said. He said it quietly, with no special emphasis, as if it were of bare importance. He got Kirk's attention as surely as if he had grabbed the captain by his shoulders and shaken him.

"Anomalies?" Kirk said, matching the gentle evenness of Spock's tone. Spock did not look up from his PADD.

"At this point, we cannot take any detailed readings of the inside of the conduit. It is inadvisable to power down the nacelle at this point."

Kirk laughed, a breath only. "No. I think we're unanimous on that one."

"However, ship sensors and viewers pick up the outside of the conduit quite well."

"And?"

Spock touched a key; the view-screen lit, and showed an image of the Enterprise from outside. The angle seemed to be from low on the disk. The picture moved steadily, sweeping back and forth.

"This is a direct feed from camera Alpha 27 Rex." Spock said. "Computer, halt image. Enlarge 200%. Enhance."

Suddenly all that was visible on the screen was the white outer skin of the ship, filling the view screen, looking a little scorched in places but, if I say so myself, Montgomery Scott thought, in damn fine shape for what she's been through the past few years.

"What are we looking at, Mr Spock?" Kirk asked. Scotty thought that the captain looked to be out on his feet, sitting absolutely still with his eyes fixed on the screen, face with the grey cast of a man who'd been hurt so desperately he *himself* couldn't tell how bad it was.

"The nacelle conduit." Spock said.

"Aye, ye hae the wrong one up there - that's the *port* conduit, see for yersel' there's nary a blemish -"

"This is the starboard nacelle, Mr Scott." Spock said. "I mentioned anomalies."

"The shields overloaded." Kirk said. "Just there. And the connections blew out when the conduit was breached and the safeties went on as the containment field wavered. Except that conduit was never breached."

"No." Spock said. "It seems we must look elsewhere to explain the connection failure."

"There isna other explanation!" Scotty protested. "Even with a containment flicker it's damn bad luck to have two connections overload at once! There's nothing else that would cause it!"

"Sabotage would." Kirk said.

"No, sir! It'd have to be done while we were power down, and the last time for that was more than 6 months ago. We would hae noticed the second we tried to bring her up for running, leaving dock, and every time since then. It1s not possible! It would have to have been done in the past few days, and There's no way any living being could just take a stroll up there! When we're running it's like hell itself - "

"Thank you, Mr Scott." Spock said, and Scotty could have bitten out his own tongue when he saw that the captain had turned his face away. Ah, I'm a bluidy fool, he told himself. Talkin' about me bairns and makin' Himself think so hard on't. Best hold your peace, man, and think before you speak. And then Kirk turned back, and looked across the table and smiled, and Scotty knew he was forgiven.

"All right, Kirk said. "We've got a conundrum. Mr Spock, you're in charge of solving it. Ms Tomlinson, as this may involve ship's security, you and your people may be involved."

"Captain," Spock said, "Given the earlier unexplained death of Aide Kythis, and until we eliminate the possibility that the connection failure was caused by the deliberate and planned action of some being aboard or able to gain access to this ship, I recommend you declare an Intruder Alert."

"Doctor?" Kirk said, looking over at McCoy. "That's a lot of strain on the crew at the best of times." An Intruder Alert would mean doubling up of watches, changed and more time consuming procedures for just about everything,  
and mandatory sharing of sleeping quarters. "How badly will it hit them now?"

"You know as well as I do they'll rise to any occasion you give them," McCoy said. "If you have to do it, you have to do it. End it quickly."

"What's the latest on casualties?" Kirk asked.

"Same as my last report, except Larssen's been moved from 'serious' to 'stable'."

"Will the lassie be alright?" Scotty asked.

"She'll likely live." McCoy said shortly. "It's too early to tell whether she'll see again, or whether those burns will be amenable to dermal regeneration. Stuff as lethal as coolant has no business within thirty miles of human beings! This is the fourth time I've had to treat coolant burns on this ship alone!"

"Write a letter to the Admiralty." Kirk said. "All right, people. We go to intruder alert as soon as I log it. Spock, the mystery is in your hands. The - funerals - will be at 1800 tomorrow. Is there anything else?"

Murmurs of no, a mute head shake from Uhura.

"I recommend you all get some sleep!" McCoy said.

"Noted," Kirk said. "Dismissed."

McCoy was the only one not to move. When the others had gone, he got to his feet with a great show of casualness, and said, "That recommendation included you, Jim."

"I know." Kirk said. "I can't, though."

"What are you going to do? Check up on Spock?"

"First," Kirk said, pulling himself to his feet, "I'm going to sound the intruder alert. Then I'm going to make sure Yeoman Rand can manage the roster changes that an intruder alert produces. Then I'm going down to Engineering to be shown the repairs in progress. After that, I'll probably go up to Science and then across to Hydroponics. Then, probably Stores. After Stores, I daresay - "

"I take the point" McCoy said. "A little touch of Jimmy in the night."

"More or less," Kirk said.

"Cut yourself some slack," McCoy said. "Tomorrow is going to be a long day too."

"Bones," Kirk said as they went together into the corridor, "I'm the captain. "'Slack' isn't anywhere in the job description that I can find."

"You're their captain, not their mother."

"I'm their captain, and therefore I *am* their mothers, and their fathers, and their confessor and their judge and their court of last appeal." Kirk stopped dead, and for a moment he looked so desolate that McCoy reached out to him instinctively.

And then Kirk gave a small, shaky sigh, and then another, and then he was the captain again. "A lot of them are only kids." he said. "You know how young they are." He put a hand on McCoy's shoulder, turned him in the direction of the turbolift. "Go on, Bones. I'm all right."

"Sure you are," McCoy said. Kirk stopped him, searching McCoy's face.

"You can't always do anything, Bones." he said softly. "Sometimes they're just hurt too badly. You're the best doctor in Starfleet. If anyone could have saved Alpse, you would have. Let it go."

McCoy took a ragged breath. "I *hate* having patients die on me," he said, and tried to smile. "The Doctor is God complex, eh?"

"The doctor isn't god, " Kirk said softly. "The doctor is only a doctor. Get some sleep yourself. Go on." He pushed McCoy gently towards the turbolift again, and McCoy went this time, feeling oddly as if the weight in chest was not - not *gone*, exactly, but very slightly lessened.

Kirk watched the doors close and then put out a hand to steady himself on the wall. The doctor isn't god, Doctor, he thought. That's the captain's job.

He straightened up, and went to sound the alert.

* * *

Captain's Log, Stardate 2045.2

We are under way for Starbase 22, at warp 3, this being the maximum we can attain at the moment. Mr Scott's repair crews continue to perform Herculean efforts, and it seems probable we will have both nacelles back on line soon,  
allowing us to reach Starbase 22 in ten more days. There has been no sign of pursuit by either the Sythenes or the Vocheron, and the representatives of those peoples remain in custody. None of them will speak. Until further instructions from Starfleet arrive, as to whether they are to be considered prisoners of war or not, I have given orders that their wishes be respected although their freedom of movement is curtailed.

This has had a possibly deleterious effect on Mr Spock's investigation of the murder of Vocheron diplomatic aide Kythis, which to date s has revealed no further clues to indicate who the perpetrator, and any accomplices, may be.

I have filed the following recommendations for commendations:

Yeoman Martinique Duval, for conspicuous bravery in repairing damage to the ship at risk of her own life, and conduct befitting an officer, above and beyond the requirements of duty.

Lieutenant (j-g) Corrina Larssen, for bravery in risking her own life in the attempt to save another, and conduct befitting an officer, above and beyond the requirements of duty.

Ensign Micaed Alpse, for conduct befitting an officer, above and beyond the requirements of duty (posthumous).

Yeoman Kevuthi, for conduct befitting an officer, above and beyond the requirements of duty.

Yeoman Lucy Quandt, for conduct befitting an officer, above and beyond the requirements of duty.

Lt-Commander Nyota Uhura, for conduct befitting an officer, above and beyond the requirements of duty.

I have also filed a recommendation that Professor Ann Ridley be recognised with an appropriate civilian award for her actions in assisting Yeoman Duval to repair the nacelle conduit, which cost Professor Ridley her life, and without which the Enterprise may well have been destroyed.

Funeral services for the Enterprise crew killed in the line of duty in the last engagement will be held when the ship's status is stable and we have stood down from intruder alert. We await information from Professor Ridley's family as to her wishes for the disposal of her body.

End Recording.

* * *

Kirk turned away from the computer and stood up. Yeoman Rand was at the other desk, the one usually covered with ship's reports and PADDs of information. Normally, Janice Rand had her own workspace, but with an intruder alert active even the captain was not supposed to be alone.

"Yeoman." Kirk said. "I'm going to the bridge."

"Yes, sir." she said, gathering her work together. She could not, of course,  
remain here by herself, any more than he could take the turbolift to the bridge alone. All over the ship, crew were adjusting their work practices to meet the demands of an intruder alert. Teams were scanning the ship for traces of the strange energy Spock had detected after the murder. Other teams were eyeballing all essential systems to make sure that nothing else had been sabotaged.

Sulu gave up the conn as Kirk came onto the bridge, and Kirk took a moment to read over the reports. Nothing had been found. He reached for the comm.

"Bones," he said, "have you had a chance to look over Spock's report?"

McCoy's sigh was audible. "No" he admitted.

"I'd like your opinion on it."

"I'll get to it when I can, Jim."

"Understood."

* * *

In sickbay, McCoy looked around at the biobeds, each occupied, and then at the untidy pile of PADDs on his desk. "Christine," he said, "Is there a report on Lieutenant Hoffman's condition?"

"No, doctor." she said. "He hasn't been back to sickbay."

"Well, call him, and get him down here."

Chapel went to the comm., but came back with a frown. "He doesn't want to come down."

"He what?"

"He doesn't want to come down. He said he doesn't feel too bad, and he's too upset to leave his quarters."

McCoy snorted. "I'll give him *upset*."

"Len," Chapel said quietly. "He said Yeoman Duval is a good friend of his. And she's still not regained consciousness"

McCoy's shoulder's slumped, and he rubbed his face wearily. "Ah. Well, he needs a check-up. Can you get up there? I'll hold the fort."

Chapel nodded, and picked up her medical tricorder. "No problem." she said.

However, in less than five minutes she was back. "He wouldn't let me in." she said. "He said he was too upset to see anybody. He's done something to his door, too, the medical override code didn't lift the privacy lock."

"Well, get security to- no, on second thoughts -" McCoy imagined a security team bursting in on the grieving officer with the words, Doctor's Orders. "No,  
um... tell him you want to talk about Duval, and scan him surreptitiously. How's Larssen doing?"

"Scans don't show any improvement in her eyes, but she's recovering well from the life-threatening aspects of her injuries."

"Well, take her with you. She can tell Hoffman that she wants to tell him about Duval, and maybe he'll open the door."

Chapel looked over to where Lieutenant Larssen sat quietly on her biobed. The lieutenant's face and hands had taken the worst of the burns when she had gone into the coolant leak after Alpse. Coolant poisoned flesh as well as burning it, and despite McCoy's best efforts with the dermal regenerator, Larssen's burns were still raw, grotesque welts and blisters on a face swollen to almost perfect roundness.

"Len," Chapel said, "don't you think that might be a shock for Hoffman?"

McCoy followed her gaze. "Tell him to keep the light low." was all he said.

And so, shortly later, Chapel let go of Larssen's arm and stepped back from Hoffman's door. Larssen pressed the chime.

"Who's there?" Hoffman's voice was slurred with grief.

"Corrina Larssen." Larssen said. Chapel could see that it was difficult for her to talk, for her lips had not escaped the burning. "I was - near the conduit. I wanted to talk to you about Marty."

There was a pause. "Is anyone with you?"

"Nurse Chapel is with me," Larssen said painfully.

"I don't want to talk to Nurse Chapel." Hoffman said.

Chapel quickly set her tricorder. "Just point it at his voice," she whispered,  
"and press activate. It'll turn off when the scan is done."

Larssen nodded. "This button?" she said, fingering the tricorder.

"Yes." Chapel stepped back, reaching for her comm. to call security to wait with her.

"Hoffman," Larssen said, "Nurse Chapel will wait for me in the corridor. May I come in? Oh, and keep the lights low." A part of her mind wondered what she must look like, for Chapel to have told her that Hoffman had better do that,  
but that part of her mind had been running along those lines since she had woken up that morning and Chapel had told her, gently, that the way her face had felt yesterday had not been emotion but injury. It can just wonder, she thought, and said again, May I come in?"

The doors hissed open. Larssen stepped forward.

"I can't see." she said, stopping just inside the doorway.

"I know," Hoffman said heavily. "I heard. There's a chair to your left."

Not wanting to risk banging her injured hand on it, Larssen moved slowly to her left, groping. The doors hissed shut behind her as she found the chair, and sat down.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Tired." Hoffman said, and laughed. "Very tired."

"Me too." Larssen told him, waiting for him to sit down so she could get the tricorder aimed. "Yesterday went for about three days, it felt."

Hoffman was pacing, and his indistinct words didn't seem to come from the same place twice.

"What happened to Marty?" he asked her.

"She - she went up the nacelle conduit." Larssen said. "I ordered her to, but she volunteered as well - I'm not sure what happened after that. But she was very brave."

"I heard - I heard we were sabotaged."

"Yes, there's an intruder alert." And why, Larssen wondered, was Hoffman all alone in his quarters when there was an intruder alert on? "We thought it was battle damage at the time, though."

"You look terrible." Hoffman said flatly. "What happened to your face? Were you in the conduit as well?"

"No," Larssen said calmly, fighting the instinct to raise her hand to her face,  
"this was coolant. We had a leak around the main starboard phaser targeting array."

"That should have done it," Hoffman said, and Larssen wondered why he sounded regretful. "Was Marty in the conduit when it went live?"

"No. She made it out to the three two crawlway but she was still there when the next attack came. She almost fell, she was in great danger, but somehow she got out."

"Almosst poetic justicce," Hoffman said.

"Not really, no." Larssen said. He wasn't going to sit down, and she suddenly didn't want to spend any more time in here with him. She stood up, and took three quick steps in the direction his voice had last come from, bandaged hand outstretched until she felt his arm. "Hoffman, I have to get a medical reading," she said, and raised the tricorder.

As she pressed the button and the tricorder bleeped quietly Hoffman twisted away and slapped the machine from her hand. Larssen heard it clatter away and stood still.

"Nno." Hoffman said. "I donn't want to be sscanned."

"You've been sick," Larssen said reasonably, straining her ears to hear where he was. "Dr McCoy is concerned."

"Telll Dr McCoyy to concentrate on injured crew like you." Hoffman said, a little to her left. "Llooks like you'll nneed all hiss attention."

"Hoffman," Larssen said calmly, and then without thought or calculation she half turned towards him, took one short step to bring her weight to her left leg and kicked with her right, aiming forty centimetres or so below his voice. She felt it connect, heard the gasp as Hoffman's breath was driven from him,  
and was already following through. Her left fist, driven with all the force of her torso uncoiling from the twisted position the kick had left her in,  
connected solidly with Hoffman's face and she felt a bloom of pain from her injuries and at the same time registered a sickening sense of wrongness as her hand drove in to something that felt too soft, too mobile, to be human lips. She felt the bandages on her hand start to unravel, and something disgustingly moist touched her fingers. For a second she flinched away, and then flung herself forward and locked her arms around Hoffman, shouting "Computer!  
Security emergency, Hoffman's quarters!"

Something slapped against her face, something wet and flexible, and she ducked away instinctively, flipped Hoffman face down and knelt on him. The door opened, Christine Chapel cried out and her footsteps came closer.

Stay clear, Larssen wanted to say, but all her attention was concentrated on keeping Hoffman down and at the same time trying to stay as far away from him as possible. There was a slithering sound, Chapel screamed and fell, and Larssen felt her grip on Hoffman loosen.

"Security!" she called again, trying to make her hands close tightly despite the bandages. Hoffman made a sound and Larssen heard a blow, heard Chapel panting. The three of them were writhing over the floor. Larssen got her grip on a leg, clung on and felt a foot rake her hands.

"Not me, dammit!" Chapel gasped, and Larssen realised she had the wrong leg,  
let go and reached out for Hoffman, heard the door open and voice yell "Clear!"

She rolled away, rolled and rolled until she came up against a wall, heard the whine of a phaser, curses and scuffling and then footsteps retreating. Straining her ears, she lay still, and when footsteps approached her she snatched at them, caught a body and brought it down beneath her.

"It's *me*!" Chapel's voice said. "He's gone."

Larssen let her go, scrambled to her feet with her back to the wall. "What happened?" she asked.

"He got past security, into the hall. The phaser didn't - didn't even slow him." Chapel climbed to her feet as well.

"His face." Larssen said, and heard the answer to her unspoken question in Chapel's sudden sound of disgust. "It felt - wrong. Was it?"

"He had those tentacle things, the Vouche have them." Chapel said. "It looked -  
I thought -". She made the noise again, and fell silent.

"That's why he let me in," Larssen said calmly. "He must have heard from someone, that I -" and then, to her own surprise, she found she couldn't quite say it.

"Yes," said Chapel, and coming closer she put one hand on Larssen's arm, at the elbow where the burns were not so bad. "I guess he miscalculated. Looks like you threw him half-way across the room."

Larssen laughed softly. "I wish Mr Sulu were here. I'll never get him to believe I was even partly successful in a fight."

The alarm sounded, and they heard the captain's voice. "All crew are authorised to apprehend and restrain the alien who has assumed the appearance of Lieutenant Hoffman of Tactical, last sighted in section 22, corridor 12. Act with caution."

"C'mon." Chapel said. "Let's go back to sickbay. I want to give you a manicure."

"You want to *what*?" Larssen said, but let herself be drawn towards the door.


	12. Chapter 12

Tomlinson lowered herself from the access and dropped to the corridor floor. "It's his comm, sir." she said. "That's all. Shimona, scan the area according to Mr Spock's protocol and get it sealed and down to the labs."

"Yes, ma'am." Shimona said, and despite her small size jumped up to grasp the hatch edges and pulled herself out of view.

Kirk took out his communicator. "Spock, we've got Hoffman's comm here. How's the shipwide scan going?"

"I have been able to narrow the field down to show significant variation in the Phillips Line spectrum. So far, we have been unable to isolate any such variance to sufficiently narrow locations to provide any useful information to the search teams. However, it is definite that Mr Hoffman, or the being appearing to be Mr Hoffman, is disrupting that range of readings."

"Keep me informed." Kirk said.

"Of course, Captain." Spock said. "Spock out."

Tomlinson sighed. "I've turned out all available crew for a hand-and-eye search of the ship," she said, "but we're running tight as it is and it'll take some time."

"Stay on it." Kirk told her. "Co-ordinate with Mr Spock. If we can rule out any part of the ship, however small, that's one less area to scan when the sensor sweep is running."

"Yes sir." she said.

Kirk checked his chronometer. Alpha shift was over, and his replacement would be on the bridge already. Bones would have told him to get some rest, but there were things - always things - that needed doing. He opened his communicator again.

"Rand." he said. "This is the captain. I'll be in lab seven, boxing Professor Ridley's belongings for her family, and then I'll be joining the search teams."

"Yes, sir." she said. "Sir, I can take care of the professor's things, if you'd prefer."

Kirk hesitated. He felt as if he owed it to Ann, to her family, in some strange way, to take on the task of sorting through her office, separating out the myriad little personal items that always drifted into people's workspaces,  
the holos and the favourite coffee mugs, the stylus that fit the hand better than any other. It was a foolish thought,  
as if the Ridley family would care, now, as if they'd even think to ask on the heels of the news that even now was travelling towards them - and as if Ann herself would, even if she had gone to some afterlife where she could see what went on behind her.

Actually, he thought to himself, she would care. Kirk imagined Ridley turning towards him, her hands going automatically to her hips. You let *who* go through my things? her ghost would say.

Recognising in that momentary wryness the beginning of healing, Kirk realised that Rand was still waiting for an answer. "Thank you, Yeoman." he said. "I'll be with the search teams. Make sure you take somebody with you."

"Yes, sir." Rand said. "Thank you, sir. For a moment there I was in danger of forgetting intruder alert procedures. I'm only in charge of implementing them,  
after all." She said the last two sentences to a comm she'd already turned off, however, and sighed.

"Mr Chekov, have you got a moment at the end of shift?"

Chekov, who had to be as dog-tired as anyone else on board, managed a smile. "If I say yes, are you going to ask me to dinner?"

Rand grinned back. "That too. But I need to go down to Lab Seven for half an hour and box up Ridley's stuff. Can you stand guard over me with a drawn phaser in case the intruder appears?"

"For dinner with a lovely lady, I can do anything." Chekov said expansively.

"If I come too, do I get dinner as well?" Sulu asked as beta shift arrived. There was a low mutter of voices as twelve officers went through the ritual of requesting and receiving relief, logging the transfer of stations and reporting status, and then Rand, Chekov and Sulu got into the turbolift.

"You get dinner as well," Rand confirmed. "Just keep me safe from the bogeyman for 30 minutes, and I'm buying."

"Janice," Chekov said very seriously as they arrived at the labs, "has no-one told you yet that you do not have to pay for food on board ship?"

The bogeyman did not put in an appearance as Rand sorted through Ridley's desk with the efficiency born of years experience with the sort of chaos Jim Kirk could produce given a flat surface and a handful of paperwork. There were more personal belongings than Rand would have expected, given how short a time Ridley had been aboard and her reputation as a ferocious taskmaster who was all business when she was working. Rand packed away three coffee mugs, one with 'Ann' on the side in decorative script, one with a picture of the waterfalls of Beta Narobi and one that asked, in plain letters 'And your problem is?'. There were half-a-dozen holophotos of people Rand did not recognise, some letters on paper, a PADD that was not starfleet issue, and...

"Hikaru." she said. "What does this look like?"

Sulu got up from his seat at the lab bench and walked over, saying "Pavel, if you even think of looking at those cards I'll know." He took the device from Rand and turned it over in his blunt, capable hands.

"Looks like a tricorder, one of the old models. You remember - well, you wouldn't. They phased these out before you even reached the Academy. Someone's made a few modifications, though."

Chekov was in the doorway now. "You still see them around, they're cheaper than the new models and they turn up in second hand shops sometimes. You know how it is, the replacements are issued and somebody thinks their old one will make a neat toy for their kid and then it gets lost, or stolen, or the baby turns out to be more interested in hockey."

"Why would the professor keep an old model tricorder?" Rand wondered.

"Let me see that for a minute." Sulu said, and when she gave it to him he held it up and looked at the panel closely. "Looks like there's some kind of lock on here, maybe triggered to erase the data if anyone tampers."

"Curiouser and curiouser." Chekov said.

"I didn't know Russians read Alice in Wonderland," Rand said, taking the tricorder back,

"In the original Russian, of course." Sulu said, forestalling Chekov. "Don't frown like that, Janice, you'll get wrinkles."

"We can't just ship this back." Rand said. "The professor was on the ship for months, well, *a* month anyway, and we can't just send off a tricorder with who knows what on it."

"Turn it on." Chekov suggested. "If it wipes the data, then well and good, and if it doesn't we'll wipe it anyway, if there's something sensitive."

"No," Rand said, "there might be personal things that would mean something to her family. I'd hate to just erase them." They could turn it over to the captain, but she didn't want to admit to him that she'd taken on something that needed his intervention anyway. And Mr Spock - well, Ridley hadn't made much of a secret of how little she'd liked the Vulcan. If she'd been using this old tricorder to keep her personal log, heaven knew what she might have entered about him! Mr Spock might be a Vulcan, but it would surely hurt his feelings to have to read a catalogue of insults from beyond the grave.

Rand sat down at the desk. "This looks like a Bondyer-Harris lock. Hikaru,  
pass me that coil of wire over there, and the clips. Pavel, I'll need another tricorder if there's one in the lab."

"You can pick the lock? Janice, that's a programmed computer lock-out, not the ignition sequence on your father's car." said Sulu, handing her the wire anyway.

"I'm not going to *pick* it." said Rand, taking the tricorder Chekov gave her. She fiddled for a moment, and then turned the newer model tricorder on. The lights on both tricorders flashed to green, and Rand leaned over the newer model, turning it so Sulu and Chekov could read over her shoulder. "I'd never have the skills to *pick* a lock like that. But if there's one thing that all these years with the captain has taught me..."

"If you don't like the answer," Sulu intoned.

"Change the question," Chekov said. "Wery good, Janice. Why was the professor studying the Woucheron?"

"I didn't know she was." Rand said. "Show me - where -"

She was silent for a moment.

"I think we have to tell Mr Spock after all." she said at last, and picking up the two tricorders she led the way out of the lab.

* * *

"Thank you, Nurse Chapel." Spock was saying to the comm as Kirk entered the lab. "That is extremely pertinent information, and you showed considerable initiative and foresight in realising its potential. Spock out."

"That was positively effusive." Kirk said, dropping into a chair. "Chapel's caught the intruder."

"She may well have," Spock said. "Following Lieutenant Larssen's attempt to apprehend Mr Hoffman, Nurse Chapel noticed that the bandages on Larssen's hands had been dislodged in the struggle. She had the intelligence to take scrapings from Larssen's fingernails, and found sufficient skin to identify the DNA. The person who escaped security and who is currently being sought as an intruder is, in fact, Mr Hoffman."

Kirk stared. "But Chapel - and the security team - said he was a Voucheron. He had the mouth tentacles, and a phaser blast didn't even slow him down."

"Nonetheless, his DNA is exactly the same as the last time Mr Hoffman was in sickbay for a routine physical."

Kirk thought for a moment, rubbing his face wearily. "I can't work it out,  
Spock." he said at last. "I can't seem to think. What does it mean?"

Spock sat down at the table, and looked at Kirk for a moment. "Jim," he said at last. "You might as well rest. I will call you as soon as anything eventuates."

"I can't rest." Kirk said. "I can't. There's too much to do, and too many lives, and too much damage. I *can't* rest."

He might have been speaking only of his responsibilities as Captain. Spock was not deceived. "I can assist you to do so, if you desire." he said. "It is a simple technique."

"To make me forget her?" Kirk said, sitting up sharply.

"I did not mean that." Spock said. "Only to ease your mind enough for sleep.  
Unless what you desire is to forget."

Kirk shook his head. "I don't think that'd be a good idea. I think this is something I need to remember. You yourself said that - how did you put it -  
'some examination of past actions is necessary to avoid the needless repetition of mistakes'." He laughed without humour, and rubbed his hand over his face again.

"What mistake have you made?" Spock said, and perhaps there was gentleness in his voice. "I was raised to be a Vulcan, and yet even I cannot call it a mistake to love."

"I didn't love her, Spock." Kirk said. "I didn't mean for her to love me. It was - comfort - for both of us, at least I think, at least at first. And she wanted to stay aboard, and for a moment I thought that it was possible I could have the best of both worlds. That perhaps with time we might - not *love*, Spock, but maybe company." He leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the tabletop.

"I did not know." Spock said.

"I was going to speak to her." Kirk said almost inaudibly. "She wasn't going to work out on the ship. I know you never said it but - I can read section reports as well as you can write them. I was going to speak to her - and it was never quite the right time - and she - god, Spock."

There was nothing Spock could think to say, and so he only sat in silence with his captain, offering whatever comfort that mere presence could give. At last Kirk looked up at him, back from wherever he had gone, and tried to smile.

"Your captain is a fool, Commander." he said.

"Many things, perhaps." Spock said. "But not, I think, that."

The door chime went.

"Yes." Kirk said before Spock could speak.

Yeoman Janice Rand came in, in her hands a strange construction of two tricorders linked together with wire. "Sir," she said, "I found this tricorder in Professor Ridley's desk. There's some information on it I think you should see."

Kirks first thought was to say Not now, Yeoman, but Janice Rand was far too competent to have disturbed him over nothing, or over something irrelevant.

"Show us." he said instead, and Janice laid the two tricorders on the table.

"There was a lock out on this older model." she explained, gesturing towards the wire loops that joined the two machines together. "I didn't know how to override it, but I set up an direct feed through the base programming. There are these notes, sir, that the professor made about the Voucheron." She touched a few keys to bring up the relevant screens, and then stepped back,  
hands behind her back. "There might be more, sir. I thought you and Mr Spock should see."

"Thank you, Ms Rand." Kirk said, giving her a quick smile before turning to the tricorder. "Your shift is over, isn't it."

"Yes, sir, it is. But I can easily look through Professor Ridley's other things for anything else useful if I could have someone from security."

"You didn't have anyone from Security in the lab?"

"Mr Sulu and Mr Chekov came with me, but their shifts are over as well, sir."  
she said.

"Thank Mr Sulu and Mr Chekov for me." Kirk said. "Tell Ms Tomlinson you're to have your escort. Well done, Yeoman."

"Yes sir, thank you." she said, and left.

Spock was already paging through the data. "It is a pity that Professor Ridley did not use one of the later model tricorders for her private work." he said austerely. "The quality of the data available from this model is markedly inferior."

"Did she draw any conclusions that differed from Bones' report?" Kirk asked.

"Not initially." Spock said. "After she completed her tricorder scan of the Vocheron ambassador, however -"

"After she *what*?" said Kirk, half out of his chair.

"Apparently, four or five days ago, Professor Ridley waited in the corridor near the Vocheron's quarters and took a clandestine tricorder reading of the ambassador. Or so I deduce from her notation that location of reading was Alpha Two, 31, the Vocheron quarters being in corridor two, Alpha sector,  
section 31. And her indication that the nature of the reading was 'blind' does not, I believe, refer to an absence of visual contact but is a reference to the xenobiologist practice of making hidden observations from a 'blind', a term drawn from ancient Terran hunting practice-"

Spock stopped. Kirk was no longer listening. The captain was, instead,  
striding about the room with a sudden excess of energy, swearing with vehemence.

"I never thought she'd actually, do it, Spock, I told her that it was out of the question when she first raised it with me and I thought, I really thought,  
that she'd listened! I can't imagine the sort of reaction this would get at Starfleet if the Voucheron found out and complained!"

"Captain, what is, is, and what is done, is done. Professor Ridley's methods may have been unorthodox and not to be commended, but the data she gathered is now available to us. I would like to take these tricorders to the lab immediately and see how this information may assist us."

"Spock, how can a scan of the Vocheron help us? You said not fifteen minutes ago that the fugitive was Hoffman, that DNA proved it."

"Indeed, sir, that is the case. However, Nurse Chapel, Lieutenant Larssen and the two crew from Security described Hoffman as having unusual features about his mouth. Chapel and the security team both described tentacles similar to those of the Vocheron, and when shown pictures of the Vocheron confirmed that the configuration was nearly identical. Nurse Chapel and Dr McCoy have both attested to the absence of such 'tentacles' at Hoffman's last physical.  
Therefore, I believe that regardless of the DNA evidence, the Vocheron are in some way connected with this matter. The fact that the Phillips Line traces I tracked through the crawlways ended in Hoffman's quarters is a further indication that there is some connection between Mr Hoffman - or whatever he may now be - and the Voucheron."

As always, Spock made it sound obvious. "Of course," Kirk said a little wearily. "Keep me posted. I'll be back with the search teams."

Spock looked at his screen. "There is a team currently in the vicinity of Lab Three." he said. "I will accompany you there."

"I think Bones should be in on this," Kirk said, and reached for the comm.  
"Bones, pick up a security escort and meet Spock in Lab Three. We have something for you to look at."

Captain and First Officer went out together. Behind them in the briefing room,  
the crawlway grill rattled briefly, and then went still.

* * *

Christine Chapel rubbed her eyes, and then frowned down at the tricorder in her hands. It resolutely refused to show anything unusual. She sighed, and looked along the corridor to the man in the red uniform behind her.

"Clear here." she said. "No readings, no visual."

"Clear here," came the answer, and Yeoman Jeffers jogged up to stand beside her. To Chapel, he looked about fifteen and to be filled with energy. She sighed again, and then took up position with the tricoder trained on the corridor behind her while Jeffers started to move cautiously forward. They had covered most of engineering's C deck this way,  
they and fifty other crew. Some were on duty, some were volunteers. She had seen Chekov earlier, and Mr Athende of Helm, and Harb Tanzer of recreation -  
and Tanzer, that gentlest of men, had been shrouded in an air of cold fury that made it chilling to be near him.

Perhaps when they were sure that the intruder was nowhere in engineering or any other vital systems the sense of urgency would flag a bit and the search would be left to those detailed to do it, but Chapel doubted it. There was an intruder - a *sabouteur* - on the ship. On *their* ship. Killing *their* crew. It wasn't anxiety about critical systems that had brought her down here to ask if she could lend a hand, it was outrage pure and simple, and she would have bet her next month's leave that it was the same for them all.

"Clear here," came the voice ahead of her. "No readings, no visual."

"Clear here." Chapel responded, and jogged wearily forwards.


	13. Chapter 13

"Cory," said a voice unexpectedly to her left. "You should get some rest. Do you need anything to help you sleep?"

Lia Burke, Larssen identified the voice. Burke played piano sometimes in the rec, had played a few times with one of the violinists in the string quartet. Better practice this voice identification trick, she told herself, looks like you're going to need it.

"I'm fine, Lia." she said. "Just thinking."

"Is there anything I can get you?" Burke asked sympathetically.

"A general channel comm, a computer station set to voice operation, and headphones." Larssen said automatically. She had asked Chapel for the same,  
before Chapel had gone off duty. She had asked McCoy, too, earlier. They had both refused her, and she had no hope of a different answer from Burke, but after a second's hesitation the night nurse put her hand gently on Larssen's shoulder.

"I have the general channel on in the office." she said. "If you'd like to listen."

She led Larssen into the office and guided her to a chair. "I have to stay by the door." she said. "In case I'm needed, and to keep an eye on M'Benga in case the intruder drops out of the ceiling or something, but I'm still here."

"Okay." said Larssen, tilting her head to catch the reports on general comm.  
there wasn't all that much that could be said on open channels, in case the intruder could listen in, so it was mainly coded references to ship sections,  
people checking in by team or by name at mandated intervals, the occasional request for a face to face meeting which indicated there was information to be exchanged.

"Can you tell what's happening?" Burke asked.

"They're about halfway though a hand and eye of engineering." Larssen told her.  
"I think the captain has set a guard over life-support and environmental systems as well, that's the only reason I can think of for so many teams scattered through C and D decks. I can't tell if they've found anything." She listened for a few minutes longer, and then said "Lia, can you check the computer for a schematic of engineering? I can't remember where the crawlway accesses are."

Silence.

"Lia?" Larssen got quickly to her feet, hair rising on the back of her neck. beside her, the comm chattered away about Team Gamma 4 in section 30 and Team Beta 9 in section 12. "Lia?" An hand outstretched to the door passed through empty space, then hit the doorframe. Larssen took a hesitant step forward and swept the air again, confirming its emptiness. Suddenly her mouth was very dry, and she moved to put her back to the wall. It would be easy for anyone - anything - wishing her harm to keep beyond the reach of her hands, to stand there in the darkness that enveloped her and laugh silently as she groped her way about.

Larssen remembered a boy in her wardhouse who had cried every night, afraid of the dark. With the superiority of several years seniority, she had told him not to be scared. There's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the light, she had told him.

She repeated it now.

There's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the light.

It was not at all comforting.

The feeling that she was marginally safer with her back to something solid was irrational, and Larssen knew it, but it was still several shaking seconds before she could bring herself to step forward quickly, one hand low to find the edge of the desk. It was harder still to move slowly, knowing she would fumble if she hurried, her back turned to the silent emptiness behind her. Find the drawer, pull it open, slide your hand through the contents to the bottom panel, she told herself. Find the drawer, pull it open, find the bottom panel and the coded lock, your serial number is 938744673, that's the top right hand corner, the bottom right hand corner, the middle top button...

It was entire seconds, it was forever, before she felt the panel click up and could reach into the cavity below and take the cold butt of the phaser in her hand. There was a sound behind her and she spun, bandaged finger on the trigger as best she could, dropping into the approved stance that was about all she'd managed to learn in marksmanship class.

"It's set to kill." she said, and was astonished at the steady calmness of her voice. "Don't move."

And Lia Burke, returning from helping Dr M'Benga to give one of their patients his medication to find Cory Larssen apparently raiding Dr McCoy's desk, was for the first time in her life rendered completely speechless for at least two seconds.

"Cory," she managed. "It's me. It's Lia. I just went - to help Dr M'Benga.  
It's me."

Larssen lowered the phaser, holding it carefully out to the side. "I didn't know where you'd gone." she said. "I thought -" She laughed softly. "I thought you were the bogeyman. You'd better come and take this off me before I shoot a cabinet. I couldn't find the safety if I tried."

Burke, stepping forward to take the weapon gingerly from Larssen's hand,  
thought that the other woman might have been crying if the burns had left her even that much of grief.

"I'm sorry, Cory," she said, setting the safety with hands that trembled a little. "I didn't think. It was my fault, I didn't think."

"Well, you know what they say," Larssen said, but whatever it was that they said, it was lost beneath the sudden clamour of the comm.

"Medical Team to Lab Three! Medical Team to Lab Three! Two crew injured,  
Medical to Lab Three!" Mahese's distinctive voice boomed, and Burke swore, and swore, and swore again.

"The doctor went down there." she said, and reached for the comm, letting the phaser fall to the desk. "Burke confirming." she snapped. "Security escort to sickbay, for the patients, please."

A pause, and then Mahese again. "Team Delta 5 on their way. Coming up from D deck."

Larssen could hear someone moving nearby that wasn't Lia, but the nurse didn't seem concerned so she guessed it had to be M'Benga.

"Too long," he said, confirming her guess. "They'll be five minutes yet."

"Is there anybody out there who can keep watch?" Larssen asked,

"Ensign Hathway, but she has both arms under regeneration, she fell during the manoeuvres."

"Give me the phaser," Larssen said, "and lead me to her."

Burke didn't hesitate, but snatched the phaser from the desk with one hand and seized Larssen's arm in the other. She dragged Larssen out into sickbay, put the phaser in her hand, and then Larssen heard two sets of footsteps receding into the distance.

"Ensign Hathway." she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"If I hold the phaser here, can you see it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Is the safety on or off?"

"It's on, ma'am."

Holding the weapon carefully, Larssen fumbled for a moment. "How about now?"

"Off, ma'am. It's set to kill."

"Well, stun didn't do much last time, if I remember. Am I aiming at the door?"

"A little to your left, ma'am."

Larssen changed position slightly. "Here?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right." Larssen said. "Between us, we make one active crew member. If something resembling Mr Hoffman comes through that door, or something resembling a Voucheron, tell me."

"Yes, ma'am." said Ensign Hathway, bravely.

"Ms Hathway?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Under the circumstances, perhaps you could bring yourself to call me Cory."

Hathway laughed, a little shakily. "Susan, Cory." she said. "Perhaps we can shake hands later on."

Larssen smiled, and then remembered that perhaps her smile was not as reassuring as it could be these days, and made herself chuckle. "It's a date."  
she said.

"Do you think it'll come in here, ma - Cory?"

"God help it if it does." Larssen said, with all the confidence she could fake.  
Or god help us, she thought.

* * *

Christine Chapel was the first to Lab Three, hearing the call for medical assistance over the comm as she and her search partner made their way through F deck. A quick call to Tomlinson and she and Jeffers had been running for the turbolift.

Spock and McCoy were both stretched on the floor, unconscious. Spock had fallen near the comm, and Chapel guessed he had retained consciousness long enough to put out the call for help. She shuddered at the thought of what could be strong enough, quick enough, to disable a full grown Vulcan, and nearly flinched at the long rows of wounds on both men's faces and hands: neat,  
parallel blisters, as if they had been flogged with a whip studded with fire,  
or attacked by an -

An octopus, she though, and remembered the squirming tentacles that had whipped out of Hoffman's mouth and lashed at her.

"Get me the emergency medkit!" she snapped at Jeffers, who was already turning to do just that. Chapel found McCoy's pulse, strong and steady, noted the even rise and fall of his chest and was turning to Spock as Jeffers ripped open the medkit and put it beside her. She snatched the medical tricorder and began scanning.

Burke and M'Benga came through the door of Lab Three at a dead run, and as Burke skidded to a stop and tore open the medkit M'Benga kept going, to drop to his knees beside Spock and McCoy on the floor.

"Len will be fine," she said tersely as M'Benga reached to find Dr McCoy's pulse. "Possibility of concussion, but fracture is unlikely and his vitals are strong. Help me here, doctor."

"What have you got?"

"Shocky pulse and respiration, bleeding from scalp wound, slow response time on the pupils," Chapel said tersely.

"10ccs idorenalise." M'Benga said to Burke, and as she nodded and began to load to the hypospray Captain Kirk came charging through the door.

"Hold it there, sir," M'Benga snapped. "This is a medical staging area."

He isn't *stupid*, Chapel thought, and if she had been less concerned for Spock she would have grinned when Kirk halted at precisely the three foot line that doctors insisted on and said, "That is quite obvious, Doctor. What's the condition of my crew?"

'Dr McCoy has a possible concussion, nothing serious, Commander Spock shows signs of a more serious injury." M'Benga said.

Turning back to the corridor, Kirk called, "Bring your people in, keep them clear of the medical staff."

As half a dozen security crew hurried through the doors and began to spread out, scanning the walls, floor and ceiling with tricorders, examining surfaces with the naked eye and with various devices, and otherwise going about their business, M'Benga stared at the captain.

"Sir!" he said. "This is -"

"A crime scene." Kirk said quietly. "Do your job, Doctor, and let Ms Tomlinson's people do theirs."

It didn't take them long. By the time M'Benga, Chapel and Burke had prepared to move their patients to sickbay, Ingrit Tomlinson had a established that McCoy and Spock had been attacked by one person; that McCoy had fallen immediately, but Spock had made it to the comm and managed to open a channel before a second blow felled him; that the room contained recent traces of Hoffman's DNA and Phillips' Line traces; and that Ann Ridley's tricorder was in dozens of pieces across the floor.

"We can try to recover the data, sir." Tomlinson said. "It's not likely, but I'll put someone on it. I've got a cordon around the area now. People at every lift entrance, access hatch, stairway and crawlway. I threw it up as soon as I heard the call, given the probability it was something to do with the intruder. He has to be within 50 meters of the lab."

"Well done," Kirk said. "Mr Scott has confirmed no damage to any engineering systems. We may be able to get hold of him before he does any more harm. What's the best place to corner him - briefing room 8?"

"The crawlways funnel in that direction, sir. But I thought that it would be easier to back him into a corner in the access tubes themselves."

"No," said Kirk. "I don't want any of the crew confronting him in such restricted space. Briefing Room 8." She turned to go, and he added, "Ms Tomlinson? Phasers on kill."

It was Shimona who got the first glimpse of what they sought. Edging her way along a crawlway, phaser in one hand and light in the other she heard a hissing noise and then something snapped through the air and knocked her light flying. She fired into the darkness and a long sucker-covered tentacle struck forward and wrapped around her wrist.

It will pull me in a minute, she thought distantly, knowing that the force of the tentacle was not one she could withstand. If this - *thing* - was strong enough to defeat Mr Spock, it would tear her limb from limb. Her heart was beating so fast her pulse was a purr in her ears but her mind was in that slow otherplace that danger took her. She brought the phaser up and aimed, not at the tentacle, but along it into the dark beyond. There was an angle she had to get, to get it right...

She closed her eyes and fired, and the tentacle whipped away and vanished into the dark. Opening her eyes, her night vision unimpaired by the phaser's glare,  
Shimona saw a dim shape moving against the back-glow of superheated wall, and she shut her eyes and shot at it again.

Unbelievably, it was not dead. It kept moving away, quite quickly, back towards the branch of the corridor. Shimona followed it, drove it, blasting again and again. Once it lunged towards her but it was so slow compared to the speed of her reactions and she shot it when it was still 2 meters away.

Suddenly it turned and bolted away into the dark. Shimona pulled out her communicator.

"Contact." she said, rubbing the stinging blisters where it had touched her. "It went down the 41 Alpha crawlway. I hurt it, but it's still moving."

"Did you hit it full?" Tomlinson asked, and Shimona could understand her concern. If a phaser on kill didn't stop this creature, what would?

"As far as I can judge. I got it a few times."

"All right. Move down 41 Alpha but check your targets, you should come up on Yeomen Escobar and Farris down there."

"Yes ma'am." Shimona said. She didn't ask if Tomlinson would remember to tell Escobar and Farris to look out for a friendly coming up on them: a security officer who had those kinds of memory lapses wouldn't have made it to section command - she'd have stayed lost in the ranks until someone she'd endangered decided prevention was the best medicine.

Nonetheless, fingers got twitchy in the dark. Shimona crouched and felt for her light. It was broken, and she put it back on the ground. Then, with a firm grip on her phaser and a stooped posture designed to evade any impulsive shots from her own side, she went forward into blackness.


	14. Chapter 14

Tomlinson's flat refusal to let Kirk into the crawlways with the search teams had verged on insubordination, and as they waited in Briefing Room 8 for the search teams to drive Hoffman towards them she made sure that there was a wall of security officers between the captain and the access hatches. She might have been doing her job, but it irritated Kirk - but when Hoffman - what had *been* Hoffman - came out of the access hatch set low in the wall, Kirk was glad of it. He - *it* - moved almost too quickly to be seen, a horrifying blur of Starfleet uniform and wrongness about the face, the vicious crack and slap of feelers, or tentacles or whatever as the thing whirled and lunged.

Kirk was marginally faster than the security team, but only by nanoseconds. Their fire lanced out, phasers set to kill, and Hoffman fell back towards the hatch. From behind him another blast came, as the crew members in the crawl-way used their own fire to keep Hoffman out in the open. He turned again,  
started to lunge forward and Kirk's phaser took him square in the face.

Hoffman did no more than shake his head and stop, making an eerie moaning noise. This close, Kirk could see that there was still some resemblance to the young officer he remembered. Mostly about the eyes, though. Not even his mother could have recognised him from the lower half of his face or his hunched, shuffling, and terrifyingly quick gait.

"Nets ready." Tomlinson said behind him.

"Ready aye." replied a light female voice, and from the corner of his eye Kirk could see Yeoman Shimona stepping forward with the kit for a heavy duty trapping net slung over one shoulder. He had an instant of wanting to protest,  
for no one as slight and delicate as Shimona should be pitted against the thing that even now tried to break through the phaser fire again, that had taken down Spock and evaded capture for all this time -

He fired at Hoffman again, recognising his own protectiveness for the same atavistic instinct that the smallest crew members always evoked. Shimona, with across the board highest scores for reflexes, co-ordination and aim, was the best person for this particular job, even with the injuries to her left hand and wrist.

She slipped into the front line of security crew, and Hoffman seemed to recognise what she carried and what it meant, for he gave that low ululation again and charged right at her. Kirk fired, fired again, but neither that nor the fire from the crew around him seemed to have as much effect this time. Hoffman only staggered slightly, then uncurled himself and leapt at Shimona,  
right at Shimona, those *things* at his face and arms snapping out at her -

Kirk didn't see her move. One moment she was standing with the net launcher loosely in her hands, eyes narrowed as if to judge the distance and her best angle of fire, and the next the net was hissing through the air to fall neatly over Hoffman and tighten around him. He fell right at her feet, and one or two of the officers took an involuntary step backwards, clearing their aim as Hoffman writhed and struggled in the fine, strong mesh. Shimona had already lowered the launcher and straightened by the time he hit the ground, and Kirk realised that she had taken Hoffman's movement, his speed and direction, very precisely into account in her aim. Kirk had seen Shimona in action in the ship-wide shooting contests, of course, and he had known she was very fast, but this was something else. This was some *other* kind of fast which couldn't even be compared to his own reflexes.

"Nice shooting, Ms Shimona." he said. She gave him the same smile another woman would have given in response to a compliment on her appearance.

"Thank you, sir." she said, never taking her eyes off Hoffman.

"Ms Tomlinson, get the prisoner down to the brig. I'm going to sickbay, and then I'll be down to interrogate him - and out other 'guests.' We'll stand at Intruder Alert until we're sure we have the answers."

"Yes, sir." Tomlinson said. "Sutton, Jackson, get the handlers on him. Mitch,  
N'to, Givers, Shimona, you're posted to clear corridors on the way, teams of two. The rest of you, pattern Gamma Five and look sharp!"

"Yes'm." came a willing chorus, and as they moved - and moved *fast* Kirk thought with a stab of pride that almost hurt - Kirk could see just how weary they all were. The rest of the crew had to be in scarcely better shape, yet he had no doubt that they were all carrying out their duties with as much dispatch and volunteering for any extra task that needed doing.

He looked up, and caught Tomlinson's eye.

"Well done," he said, although it was not enough.

"Thank you, sir." she said, and he guessed it was not enough for her either,  
for she sketched a salute that protocol did not call for before turning away to her people and the tasks she'd given them.

He stopped only briefly in sickbay. McCoy and Spock were both still unconscious. Nurse Burke working efficiently at the machines surrounding McCoy, and Chapel and M'Benga were busy with Spock. M'Benga gave only a sharp - "I don't *know*, sir!" to Kirk's query. A security team of two were standing by the door, looking a little pale and shooting nervous glances at Lieutenant Larssen. Lia Burke stepped away from the biobed and took Kirk's arm, drawing him firmly towards the door.

"Captain," she said, "there's really nothing we can tell you right now. Those blisters seem to have some kind of localised toxin or reaction, as well as the physical trauma, and we're trying to identify it. The knock Dr McCoy took isn't as bad as Spock's, but human skulls are thinner, too. We'll keep you informed."

"When they regain consciousness," Kirk said, using that 'when' like an order to fate, "tell them we've captured Hoffman, and I'm questioning him. I'll send back word of any information we get that might help here."

'We'd appreciate it, sir." M'Benga said, and then "Watch that biochem reading!"  
as alarms went off on the biobed where Spock lay. M'Benga bent to work again with a look of concentration that told Kirk he was already out of the room as far as the doctor was concerned.

Larssen heard Kirk leave. She had discovered she could tell a great deal about what was going on around her, far more than she would have imagined possible. She had realised, for example, that it was *two* sets of footsteps coming in the sickbay door and not one, when the security team arrived, and that realisation had given her just enough time to jerk her arm up as she squeezed the phaser's trigger in response to Hathway's warning scream. She had vaporised the door lintel rather than the security crew, which was certainly a preferable outcome.

Now she could tell that the only people moving about sickbay were the two nurses and Dr M'Benga. Snatches of their conversation came to her - "...deep tissue ... but not ... stabilise the gamma lines ... what's the readout? ...  
give me the ...captain better get *something* out of Hoffman ..."

Not good. That she could tell from their tone.

Then Christine Chapel, louder: "Doctor! I'm getting a rise in cortical activity."

A familiar voice, then, low. "Jim - the Vocheron - the readings - Phillips -"

"Commander Spock, can you hear me? This is Dr M'Benga. Can you hear me?"

"The Vocheron - Hoffman is -"

"They've caught Hoffman, sir." M'Benga said. "The captain is questioning him now -"

"No!" The command in Spock's voice froze everyone in the room. "He must not! The Phillips Line readings - it takes a domain at the 437 point to disperse the energy nexus - feedback - they *had* to use a phaser on Kythis, or the doctor would have known-"

"Sir, you must be calm, you have been injured-" M'Benga was saying.

"The captain must not go near Hoffman." Spock grated. "No one must. No one!"

"Lie *down*, Commander!"

"I'll call." Chapel said, and Larssen heard her quick footsteps going toward the office. She had obviously realised that there was little other way to satisfy Spock, and for that Larssen rated her somewhat more highly than M'Benga, who was still trying to persuade Spock to lie down and be quiet when the captain was clearly in some kind of danger - in Spock's mind, if not in reality.

"It isn't the Vocheron," Spock was saying, "although they couldn't come aboard without them. Of course, they couldn't afford to be scanned by any of our equipment, and the spike at the gamma half would disrupt any records in the transporter buffer."

"Sir, you took a bad blow to the head, you're still confused, please, lie down.  
Now."

Larssen guessed that M'Benga would be the one who took a bad blow to the head if he didn't back off. She slipped off the edge of the bed and moved in the direction of the voices, one hand out to avoid collisions.

Footsteps coming back from the office.

"Larssen, get out of the way," M'Benga snapped. His voice was strained. "Sir,  
no, you *cannot* get up right now, please lie back-"

"I need to hear-"

"You're on the sick list, the Commander is raving, and you're in the way! Larssen, you're no use to duty right now!"

His words went right to the heart of her fear and lodged like ice. She took a step backwards without thinking, as if distance could reduce the impact. He only said what you knew, Cory, she told herself. No place for a blind woman on a ship of the line. But all that belongs to the future, and right *now* -

Larssen stepped forward again. "It's important, Doctor." she said steadily. "I saw the readings he's talking about."

"Larssen, he's had a crack to the head that should have killed him and there's some kind of toxin I can't identify in his blood stream. Please step out of the way."

And then Chapel, breathless, "Sir, the captain is already in the brig with Hoffman and - and Ms Tomlinson said that - she said she couldn't -"

Movement around her, feet hitting the floor and a body blundering against her,  
staggering, far warmer than a human body would have been.

"Sir!"

"The captain -" Spock said, and he was breathing hard with effort, "it will take him - I must - the brig."

"Sir?" Larssen said, trying to turn towards him. "Sir, what do we have to do?  
Sir?"

Spock gasped. "The Phillips - Line readings give - the answer." the voice came. "The spike points - a contained domain - feedback the Line variations -  
energy. It's energy, we were misled..."

Larssen thought she could make sense of it, if she had time - if she had time to think - but he was still talking. "Not the Vocheron. Not *only* the Vocheron. The readings - all of them. *All* of them. She knew. Why they wouldn't be scanned. She knew."

A hand on her shoulder, bearing down with inhuman strength that made her gasp in pain.

"All of who? Sir?" she asked. "Or of what? The readings? Sir? Sir?"

"Jim-" Spock's voice said, right by her. "No -" The fingers on her shoulder tightened beyond bearing and then slackened suddenly and the hand fell away and she was reaching, grabbing at Starfleet uniform fabric that slipped past her clumsy bandaged fingers -

"Get - I - there!" Voices around her, people moving, people working and jostling her aside. "He's out - on the - that's it, like - 10 ccs, stabilise -  
watch the - better make it 15, and stand by."

Larssen's right arm was numb and she very much wanted to avoid having to move that shoulder. She backed up to the wall to make sure she was well out of the way, trying to locate voices, footsteps - there were too many, perhaps the security guards were also involved in the flurry of movement around the biobed.

Larssen had never really understood the concept of irony. It was foreign to the Initari worldview, and off-worlders used it in a variety of often-contradictory ways. But now, standing with her back to the wall in sickbay, she thought she might just have grasped it.

Like all cadets no doubt, she had fantasised about a future career in Starfleet where she would heroically save the ship and the captain from certain death because of some insight that only *she* had. As she had grown older, she had dismissed those thoughts for the youthful daydreaming that they were, and found that her heritage made it easier to do so, easier to be content with a role as a small cog in the great machine that was Starfleet. Now, though, the captain *was* in danger. She *was* the only one with the information to do something about it.

And she was useless. There was absolutely nothing she could do.

She could have laughed.

Whatever damage Spock's desperate grip had done to her shoulder seemed to have spread to her chest, and settled as a dull ache that made it hard to breathe.

Spock was possibly dying, and the captain was probably going to, and she couldn't even walk across the room without blundering in to something. Spock had struggled to his feet despite whatever terrible injuries he had, because -

Because.

Her heart gave a sickening little thump. Because you got up and did your duty.  
When you couldn't possibly do more, when there was absolutely nothing you could do -

You tried. You got up and you tried with everything that was in you and if you failed, you failed on your feet.

Larssen felt her way along the wall until her raised hand hit the comm. She found the largest button, the one that put you right through to the main board.

"This is Lieutenant Larssen." she said. "I have to speak to Lieutenant Commander Iyen."

"The Lieutenant Commander is off watch at the moment, Ms Larssen." Mahese's mellow voice said.

"It's an emergency."

"Right away."

Iyen's voice was sleepy when he answered after four long cycles of the page.  
"Yes?"

"Sir, this is Larssen. A containment domain focussed on Phillips Line Gamma half and 437 points has to be set up at the brig right away. It's an emergency."

"What's going on?" Iyen sounded far more alert now.

"Sir, there's some kind of danger to the captain and Commander Spock wants that domain up."

"What danger? What's going on? Setting up that kind of domain near the brig forcefield brings it dangerously close to feedback overload, Larssen."

"Sir, I don't *know*," Larssen said. "I'm in sickbay and Commander Spock has lost consciousness. I think it's urgent, though. You have to hurry."

She broke the connection before he could ask any more questions she couldn't answer and prayed that he wouldn't waste time trying to confirm the order with Spock or Kirk or *anybody*. How much time would that lose? What if he wasn't willing to act on a j-g Lieutenant's say so? She found the keys for Lab Seven by memory, thinking, be there, dammit, Brand, be there!

"Lab Seven."

"Brand! It's me. Listen, you have to do exactly what I tell you and don't argue. Get my tricorder from the second top drawer in the workbench, the one I used to take the readings off that phaser from the murder, and get the domain generator from the biosample storage unit and meet me at the brig with them,  
right away."

"But the samples will -"

"Brand, that's an order. Do it. Now." Larssen told him evenly.

"Yes'm." he said, and broke the connection.

Larssen took a second to orient herself, worked out where the door was. From here it was straight down the hall to the turbolift, and then to deck 9 -

"Security," she said to the air, and one of the two officers who had been sent to sickbay after Spock and McCoy had been injured responded. Larssen turned towards the voice. "I need someone to take me down to the brig."

"Ma'am, is that an order?" he said.

"Yes." Larssen said. "If it has to be."

Her hand on his arm, she followed him as fast as she could. She didn't notice that the pain in her chest was gone.


	15. Chapter 15

I'm in trouble, Kirk thought, and dodged across the brig. I'm in serious trouble and I don't think I'm going to be able to get myself out of it, this time. Not alone.

And he was alone. He was separated from his crew by the shimmering barricade of the brig's force-field, just as he had been when Hoffman's body had convulsed within the restraining net. Just as he had been when Hoffman began screaming, and then coughing as blood spattered from his mouth, and then went silent as -

Went silent as his mouth began to glow. As the light had cohered into a visible shape dragging itself out of what was left of the Starfleet officer it had inhabited.

Kirk had snatched his communicator. "Keep the brig quarantined!" he'd ordered Tomlinson, backing away to the furthest corner from Hoffman's body and the creature that was now writhing in the air above it. "Keep the force- field *up* no matter what, d'you understand? No matter what happens. No matter what I tell you from here on. Lock my codes out. Command to Spo- to Scotty. Intruder Alert Code 10, Red Alert, institute General Order 19 subsection 4 paragraph 14 -"

And then it had lunged at him, and he had lost hold of his communicator in a lethal game of tag. Subsection 4 paragraph 14 - when a ranking officer is suspected of being under the mental influence or control of a being or species hostile to the Federation. Tomlinson was now empowered to take all necessary steps to see Scotty as officer-of-record and to make sure that Kirk's command codes, his access to the computer, his authority to order the crew, were suspended until he was cleared and certified as unaffected.

He dodged again, got his back to the wall, and tried to keep his eyes on the thing in the room with him. His peripheral vision showed him Hoffman's body,  
slumped on the floor and still wrapped in the restraining net. Poor Lieutenant Hoffman. It had been sheer bad luck that he had been off-duty and sedated when *this* was looking for a victim. It was not the sort of risk he must have imagined taking when he signed on.

Kirk wondered if Hoffman had retained any self-awareness, if he had any idea of what had happened to him, even at the beginning. And then wondered if he himself would know that, soon enough. And ducked as it came at him, diving across the room to get to the other corner.

It was fast. But worse than fast, he couldn't hope to fight it - not because it was *too* fast, or *too* strong, but because it - wasn't. Wasn't something he could lay hands on, shimmering there in the air before him. Was something *other* than all those things he was used to, things that you could touch or hit or shoot.

There was a likeness to the Vocheron, particularly around the - well, what he was thinking of as the head. The part of it that was always first when it lunged at him, with airy extensions that were a little like the mouth tentacles of the Vocheron, or like the growths that had taken over so much of Hoffman's face. The rest trailed behind, lithe and supple and translucent.

The main difference between this thing and the Vocherons - well, apart from the total non-corporeality of *this*, Kirk thought as he dived left, rolled and managed to evade another swoop, the main difference was that this thing was incredibly beautiful. Graceful, elegant, it lunged and turned, the lights in the brig glittering over its back and sides and bringing out the dozens of opalescent colours there. It looked like a being of pure energy *ought* to look, like a more evolved species *should* look, beauty and elegance the outward show if its sophisticated and exalted inner state.

Kirk might have believed it. If he hadn't seen it drag itself out of Hoffman's mouth and leave the man a bloody mess on the floor capable of living only a few agonised minutes.

If it wasn't trying to do the same to him.

"What do you *want*?" he panted, leaping upwards this time when it darted at him and barely managing to avoid it.

It didn't answer. Kirk didn't know if it could answer. It came at him again and he moved to evade him again and this time his foot caught on something soft on the floor and he stumbled and saw it coming right at him, right at him, oh god no not like this -

At the last minute it brushed past his cheek instead, leaving that side of his face numb, and swirled in the air to the other side of the room.

Maybe it doesn't want to kill me after all, Kirk thought, and then glanced down to see what his foot had caught on. Hoffman. The sight banished any inclination to believe this creature meant no ill to him or his ship.

It struck again, and as Kirk dived away he felt the stab of pain in his ankle that meant a sprain: it gave out beneath him and he fell, rolled, scrabbled to his feet and once more saw the thing turn aside at the last minute to brush against him. This time it was against his right arm and he felt that arm go dead and limp.

Does it want to do to me what it did to Hoffman? Kirk wondered. Or does it want to kill me? What's its game, here?

It was the word 'game' that gave him the clue he needed.

Iowa. Summer. The barn cat had kittens. His favourite, an elegant little miss with calico markings spending hours batting a mouse around while it tried to get away, ever more bleeding and battered and desperate. His mother putting an end to the game, saying 'Don't play with your food, kit', one firm stamp on the hapless mouse. 'If cats looked like toads, Jimmy,' she'd said, 'we'd hunt them down and drive them to extinction. We'll forgive any amount of cruelty from what seems like beauty.'

Don't play with your food, kit.

It dived once more and this time it was his left leg it numbed. Kirk stumbled,  
nearly fell, caught himself with his one working arm against the wall and swung around at bay.

He had been angry at the circumstances, and afraid, at the thought that it was going to kill him and there was nothing he could do about it. But that it was *playing* with him - the fury he felt at that realisation compared to his previous anger the way the Enterprise's phasers compared to a flashlight.

And in the incandescent light of his rage, he saw a possibility. Not, perhaps,  
to kill this creature that had taken one of his crew and *used* him up like a coat worn to threadbare rags and thrown away, but at least to thwart it a while, keep it from doing the same to him for long enough to let his crew come up with a more permanent solution.

"You *want* me?" he snarled at the shape that whirled and darted opposite him. "Is that it? Well, come on!"

* * *

McCoy woke with a pounding headache and the overwhelming desire to pull the covers back over his head and sink back into sleep. Good lord, what *had* he drunk last night to have this kind of a hang-over? He racked his memory but couldn't get any further forward than Jim leaving the lab, Spock with a tricorder in his hands - must have gone to his quarters after that and raided his own stash of Saurian brandy, which was damn stupid at the moment with so many wounded and so many others mourning, and some damn intruder loose on the ship -

( - falling out of the crawl-way hatch in the ceiling too fast to be seen as more than a blur, and whirl of long and disgusting feelers or antennae or *something* and no more time than enough to register panic, horror and then falling and the edge of the bench coming up too fast -)

He sat up, and then realised that was not, perhaps, his best option, as his stomach rebelled and he barely managed to lean over the edge of the bed before vomiting.

"Doctor!" Nurse Burke was there with a cloth, which was good, and she wanted him to lie back down again, which was not so good.

"Spock -" he said, "Hoffman. Spock?"

"He's here. Spock's here, I mean. You took a bad knock on the head, Dr McCoy,  
and he took a worse one. Just lie back, please, Doctor."

"Just get out of my way, *Nurse*," McCoy said, and put his feet down to the floor. The floor rippled a few times and then lay obediently still. "I need the charts for Spock. Get them for me, will you, Lia?"

"Will you lie down if I do?"

"No," said McCoy, and stood up. After a few seconds when it seemed like that had not been such a good idea after all, the room settled down. "But get them for me any way, there's a good girl. Ah, M'Benga, there you are."

Dr M'Benga hesitated at Spock's bedside, clearly trying to work out whether to stay by the Vulcan's side or cross to McCoy. As he would doubtless try to get McCoy to lie down again, it seemed like the best idea was to take the dilemma away altogether. Leaning cautiously on whatever bits of equipment were handy, McCoy went to stand at M'Benga's side.

"Where're those charts, Lia?" McCoy asked.

"Len, you shouldn't be up, you were concussed, it took us nearly fifteen minutes to stop the intracranial bleeding, you -"

"I don't want to know all that, thank you very much." McCoy said. "I want my patient's charts. Ah, there you are, Lia. Thanks." He flipped on the PADD and began to read. Chapel came around the edge of the bed and stood unobtrusively close to him, ready if he needed support.

"Commander Spock sustained a serious head injury when he fell, but the most critical part of his condition is the presence of an unknown toxin in his blood-stream. We've run toxicology screen down to the 10th degree and we can't get anything that looks like a match."

"I'm not surprised." McCoy said, paging through the results. "It's not a toxin."

"Doctor," M'Benga said, "You've had a very difficult day and you've been injured. You shouldn't even be on your feet yet, let alone working. Please,  
lie back down, and let Nurse Burke take care of you."

"Not just yet, thank you, son," McCoy said, still reading. "Chris, what's been going on here?"

She gave a brief recount of Kirk's visit, Spock's brief awakening, Larssen's interference - and at that point they looked around for Larssen and realised she was gone.

M'Benga cursed inventively. "I want," he said between his teeth, "just *one*  
of my patients to stay where they're supposed to be for just *five* minutes."

McCoy chuckled. "Son," he said kindly, "there's one thing you'll learn on this ship. On your first day of medical school, you were better at being a doctor than any Enterprise crew member will ever be at being a patient. We'll find her later. What exactly did Spock say?"

"He was raving about Hoffman being some kind of danger to the captain - but Hoffman was in the brig - and some kind of containment field."

"Yes," McCoy said. "Chris, pull me up 25 cc adrenalise and a five-to-nine solution of drenamilian. Oh, and tri-ox. Regular dose."

"Hold it there, Nurse Chapel." M'Benga snapped. "Len, you're on the sick-list.  
This is *my* patient and you are in no fit state to be making decisions. That could kill him! We need to identify the toxin and find an antidote before-"

Mahese's voice cut across the room on all-call hail. "Attention, all crew.  
Attention, all crew. Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott is now officer-of-record for the USS Enterprise, in accordance with General Order 19 subsection 4 paragraph 14. This situation will continue until further announcement. Repeat, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott is now officer-of-record for the USS Enterprise, in accordance with General Order 19 subsection 4 paragraph 14. This situation will continue until further announcement. We are at Intruder Alert, Code Ten, Red Alert. All crew, general quarters. All crew, general quarters. This is *not* a drill. Repeat, this is *not* a drill."

"Son," said McCoy, and his voice was kind but his eyes were as cold as space. "It's not 'Len'. It's 'Dr McCoy'. 'Chief Medical Officer McCoy', if you want to get all Starfleet about it. I know you know Vulcans inside out, but I know Spock. You need to sit down quietly now."

M'Benga stepped backwards without thinking about it.

Chapel came back with a tray, hyposprays lined up. "Len," she said softly,  
"what's going on?"

"It's not a toxin." McCoy said, administering the first hypospray. "It's a by-product from exposure to radiation and there's nothing we can do for it at the moment."

"Radiation?"

"Mmph. Spock worked it out. I don't suppose that old tricorder was brought in with him?"

"It was shattered."

"Of course. It would have been. Hoffman was emitting some kind of radiation -  
not Hoffman, exactly, but something Hoffman carried. There we go. Come on,  
Spock. Wake up."

All four looked expectantly at the monitors, which obstinately refused to change. McCoy winced.

"I didn't want to do this." he muttered. "Not with this headache."

Leaning forward, he brought his mouth within an inch of Spock's ear and took a deep breath.

"Spock!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Wake up!"

"I saw a jump, Doctor." Burke said. "Just then."

"Spock! Wake up! You're needed! SPOCK! JIM NEEDS YOU!"

Every alarm on the biobed went off as Spock opened his eyes.

"Shut them off!" McCoy snapped at Chapel. She tore her eyes away from Spock,  
and silenced the alarms. The Vulcan was struggling to rise and McCoy put an arm around his shoulders and helped him to a sitting position, nearly losing his own balance with the effort.

"Doctor." Spock said. "Your behaviour is - unusually logical. We must go to the brig at once."

"No argument here." McCoy said. He helped Spock to his feet and then discovered his own strength was insufficient to hold the Vulcan up. For a moment they wavered together, and then Chapel seized McCoy on one side and Burke took hold of Spock.

"The two of you," Burke said, "are in no fit state to go traipsing off *anywhere*."

"That's why you're coming with us, Lia. You wouldn't want us to fall down and hurt ourselves, would you?" He had to admit, it was faintly ridiculous. Spock was the peculiar shade of grey-green that Vulcans could go and he was swaying slightly. McCoy himself, grateful for Chapel's strong arm around his waist, was doing just fine except for the moments when the floor tried to rear up and smack him in the face. Couple of invalids and two nurses, off to save the day,  
McCoy thought, and wiped sweat out of his eyes.

Burke sighed in exasperation. Chapel kept her face properly neutral, but when she caught Spock's eye he could see a glint of humour in her eyes.

"I don't recall," she said, as the four of them staggered towards the door,  
"this being *anywhere* in my job description when I signed on."

"Sure it was, Chris." McCoy was slightly breathless with effort, but Spock had previously observed that even extreme physical discomfort was not enough to deter the doctor when he had something to say - however trivial. "Sure it was.  
Under 'other duties as required.'"

"That was *not* on the form." Chapel hit the call button for the turbolift.

"Silly me." McCoy said, voice a ragged thread. "I must remember to put it there when I get back to my office."

She snorted in reply.

Spock tried not to be irritated by their banter. He had long since realised that many humans resorted to such conversational tactics when under stress, and he was relieved enough that McCoy was not seeking to involve him, this time. Nonetheless, with the sense of urgency that sat in the pit of his stomach and the racking pain that inhabited every part of his body, human social customs were difficult to bear with equanimity.

"How long has it been since the captain went to interrogate Mr Hoffman?" he asked, and was gratified that his voice remained calm.

"Not long, sir. Ten or fifteen minutes." Nurse Burke replied.

Not long. Ten or fifteen minutes. There were many ways of defining duration as 'long' or 'short'. If what he suspected were true, ten or fifteen minutes was a very long time indeed.


	16. Chapter 16

They struggled out of the turbolift at deck 9 and down the hall towards the brig. The place was full of security, McCoy noticed, although none of them seemed to be *doing* very much, just standing around with desperately tense expressions. Tomlinson hurried up the hall to them, straight to Spock.

"Sir," she said, "thank god! This - this - *thing* came out of Hoffman, and the captain -"

"Show me," Spock said, and went forward with Lia Burke's support. McCoy paused as Spock went out of sight around the corner.

"Why don't you go on back to sick bay, Chris." he said. "This bit *isn't* in your duty statement."

"Are you coming back with me?"

"I figure that now I'm here I may as well take advantage of the ring side seat." he said, trying to keep the anxiety he felt out of his voice.

"Me, too," Chapel said shortly. Her eyes were on the point in the corridor where Spock had disappeared.

"All right," McCoy said. He thought about adding, 'You don't fool me, Christine,' but then she would probably tell him that *he* didn't fool *her*, either. "Let's go."

They went on together, carefully, McCoy letting Chapel take most of his weight now. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this bad, and distracted himself from it by comparing how he felt now to various well-earned hangovers in his past. Romulan Ale, now that one was a doozy. Saurian brandy, he always swore he'd never drink it again and always did. Good old mint juleps, nectar of the gods at the time and vengeance of the gods the next morning...

They made it around the corner and stopped so that McCoy could lean against the wall. He blinked sweat from his eyes and looked around.

They couldn't see into the brig from here. Spock was up ahead, standing by himself now (McCoy would have bet real money that it was the Vulcan's stiff-necked pride that held him on his feet, couldn't have Commander Spock showing weakness in *front* of people, lord, no.)

Iyen was there as well, bent over some form of machinery. Other people in Science section blue. McCoy recognised young Yeoman Brand even at this distance by his red hair (must be why the boy never even considered engineering) and beside him, her posture slightly off for someone looking at the machinery, Larssen.

"Look, Chris," he said, from behind the terror he felt at seeing that deadly earnest look on Spock's face, "we found Larssen."

"Oh, M'Benga *will* be pleased." she answered. Her gaze was fixed on Spock, as the science officer turned and straightened and looked straight into the brig...

He had not thought to imagine what the creature would look like, freed of its shell of flesh. He had not imagined that it would be aesthetically pleasing, and yet it undoubtedly was. The lights in the brig, even the faint glow of the containment field, shimmered and glinted on the translucent 'body', the fine feelers at the 'head' writhed and shifted with a deceptively slow grace, and the movements were elegant and efficient. All this Spock saw, and noted, as Jim Kirk ducked the creature's charge and flung himself across the room, staggering, one arm hanging limp, to fetch up dangerously close to the brig force-field, shouting something inaudible and glaring defiance.

That was very like the captain. As his staff hurried feverishly to complete the containment domain array, Spock observed that Kirk's actions were not as random and desperate as they seemed, for time and time again he lured the creature into charging near the force-field, ducking away at the last minute to let it crash into the field with a shower of sparks. After each of these events, the creature writhed in what seemed to be pain, and moved more sluggishly.

"Sir, we're ready." Iyen was a mass of troubled emotions, but Spock noted with approval that this had not affected his efficiency.

"Instigate the domain." Spock said, and Iyen gave the orders and turned back.

"It will take a few minutes, sir." And then - "What's the captain *doing*,  
sir?"

"I surmise that he is attempting to lure the creature into the brig force-field to destroy it."

"Will he - will it work, sir?"

"No. The force-field will cause it some inconvenience, and perhaps 'discomfort', but it is of the wrong calibration to do any permanent harm."  
Which Jim had no doubt realised by now, Spock thought. How like him not to give up, even in the face of inevitable defeat.

Spock could feel the Phillips Line domain on his skin, now, as it started up and wrapped the whole area in a network of energy on precisely the same lines as the radiation emitted by the creature - emitted, also, Spock now knew, by Hoffman and the Vocherons. Inside the brig, the creature could obviously sense it also, for it turned on itself and - *looked*, although how Spock knew that he could not tell - out of the brig at the science officers. Then it spun on its length and dove straight for Kirk at twice the speed of its previous actions, no longer playing now but in very deadly earnest. The captain evaded it barely, stumbled and fell and somehow got to his feet barely in time to dodge away again.

Spock took two steps forward until he was only a meter or so from the brig. The movement seemed to attract the creature's attention and it paused in its pursuit of Kirk for a moment, giving the captain precious seconds to get his balance. Then it turned again and lunged again -

~It is not he who will destroy you~

No way to tell if the creature had any psi receptivity, but its ability to infiltrate the human mind as well as the human body indicated that was a possibility, and Spock had the Vulcan mind disciplines to draw on as he sent that thought with all his strength.

~*I* will destroy you. *I* am your enemy.~

And as he had hoped, the creature turned and dove straight for the force-field.  
There was a crackling noise as it struck it, and the field shifted all the way into the ultraviolet in a radiant cascade of stressed molecules. Around him,  
crew members cried out and fell back, covering their eyes. Spock's protective eyelids slid shut, but he did not need vision to know what was happening.

The creature had left the captain and turned its attention to him, Spock. It was throwing itself against the forcefield in an effort to get at him.

And, slowly, it was forcing its way through.

"Mr Iyen," Spock said dispassionately, "It may be necessary to bring the containment domain up somewhat more quickly than we estimated."

"It can get *through* that?" Iyen asked incredulously, but he was already bending over the domain emitter and his next words were commands to the officers calibrating the array.

Inside the brig, Kirk gave a wordless cry and flung himself at the creature,  
battering at it. Spock noted that the captain had clearly realised that the touch of the energy creature bestowed temporary paralysis, for he had lifted his lifeless right arm in his left hand and was using his own limb as a club. However, it merely passed harmlessly through and through the creature.

It had not even a distracting effect. The creature continued to work its way through the force-field. It had its 'head' through now.

"Mr Iyen." Spock said again. With his peripheral vision, he could see the Andorian officer working frantically over one of the field generators. Off to the side, Yeoman Brand was similarly occupied, asking questions and receiving answers from someone just beyond Spock's field of view.

If the creature got through, it would at least be separated from the captain for long enough for them to bring the domain on line. However, there was little that he himself could do if it attacked him - save keep its attention long enough for the rest of the crew to destroy it before it caused any further harm to the ship.

Destroy it, and doubtless whatever being hosted it at the time.

He prepared himself as best he could.

"Once the field is online, all officers are to fall back to a place of safety. If I attempt to leave this area before the field has been on line for 180 seconds, I am to be restrained and returned to the area." he said. "That is an order."

"Yessir." came a chorus of responses.

McCoy saw Spock's posture shift, his hands rise slightly in the characteristic defensive position of the Vulcan arts of combat. "You - damn - *fool*!" he gasped, and staggered forward from the wall. Spock didn't seem to have heard him. He was watching the creature's progress through the force-field as if it were a god! damn! interesting mathematical equation

Inside the brig, Kirk drew back. Spock could see his face clearly, could see the characteristic narrowing of his eyes and the set of his jaw that was Jim Kirk about to take action - but before he could do anything, the overloaded brig forcefield began to short, and a finger of electricity reached out to drop Kirk where he stood.

"Jim!" Spock shouted.

And the world went mad.

The Phillips Line domain came to full power, causing the creature to writhe in agony and filling the air with surges of energy that staggered even Spock. Thrashing against the brig's force-field, the creature scattered hyper-charged particles in a rain of fire. Kirk lay still almost beneath the creature, his hair and uniform beginning to kindle. Spock could not see if he was breathing,  
but after such a massive shock it seemed unlikely.

"Take the force field down!" Spock shouted over the crackle of stressed ions and sparks. A flash from the force-field as it began, finally, to completely over load ignited part of the wall. A second struck one of the field generators and the containment field wobbled - and went out of alignment.

The air was on fire. The air was fire.

"Sir!"

"Take it *down*!" He could not see from here if the captain was still breathing. "Doctor - " McCoy was beside him, weaving on his feet and staggering against the energy snapping in the air around them. "The captain will require -"

"I don't need you to tell me how to do my job!" McCoy said. "What are they doing? I have to get in there!"

Spock ignored the rhetorical question, tried to see through the blazing light to ascertain the cause of the delay. Iyen was sprawled on the ground, still burning. Another officer, attenuated to an unrecognisable silloutte worn away at the edges by the fierce light was stooping over the generator. Beyond, Tomlinson was staggering to the brig controls, slamming her hand on the console.

The field came down with one last flare. Behind Spock, a woman was shouting -  
"Get back, get back, I've got it!" McCoy was moving forward to help the captain, and the creature, moving through the warped and corrupted containment field as if it were its natural element - perhaps it was, Spock reflected - was coming straight for him. He braced himself to evade it -and then seemed to hesitate, writhing upon itself. Spock felt the containment domain steady. It would have to retain integrity for at least thirty seconds before it would be even slightly effective - three minutes before they could be certain of safety.

"Get *back*, Brand, get *back*" someone was still saying. "I've got this, get *back*, get *back*..."

Flickers of light ran up and down the creature's body, which Spock deduced were an effect of the containment domain disrupting its own electrical field. For the first time it made an audible sound, a howl of rage so high up the scale that many species would have been unable to hear it, and flailed in the air. Spock measured the distance between it at the generators, gauged which one the creature would attack, and lunged for it.

A faulty estimation. The creature whipped itself towards the other generator at a speed which was, quite frankly, absurd outside an entertainment holovid, before Spock could even gather himself for another leap. It was aiming, not for the generator - perhaps it could not affect non-living matter - but for the people next to it.

"Cory, move! Move! Movemovemove!" Yeoman Brand was screaming and the creature swooped down on her as she tried to evade something she could not see - it missed her face, but struck her in the chest and she fell limply towards the generator controls.

Yeoman Brand leaped forward, reaching right through the creature's head toward Larssen. As he did so Spock could see the paralysis take effect as Brand's hands went limp but he kept going and knocked Larssen hard, one wrist bending completely the wrong way with a grinding noise audible even in the inferno. Nonetheless, Brand managed to shove her hard enough to change the trajectory of her fall and she landed beside rather than on the generator, and lay twitching.

The creature turned again, screamed again, and Spock knew that this time it would come for him, to take him, he who had declared himself its enemy. It swerved through the air with the containment field tearing at its essence -  
Brand flapped numb hands at it in a gesture bizarrely reminiscent of 'shoo' but was ignored as it dived -

"Leave my crew alone, goddamn you! LEAVE MY CREW ALONE!"

Behind Kirk, McCoy cursed. Barely had he got Jim breathing again before the damn fool was on his feet trying to get himself killed once more. Fine thanks, that was, and next time see if he wouldn't -

The creature came at Jim as if recognising at last who its true enemy was and Jim was just *standing* there hanging on to the door frame - McCoy shoved him out of the way with all his strength and Kirk went down sprawling and lay still. McCoy had just time to realise that that meant the creature was coming straight for him and think - oh that was very clever, you old fool - and close his eyes.

Something hit him in the chest like a groundcar on full throttle and his head hit the floor hard.


	17. Chapter 17

"Which explains the particular type of sabotage we were victims of," Spock was saying, somewhere very far away. "The nacelle conduit was a suitable environment for our - intruder - and the energy fields at the connection points were of the nature of things it was able to affect, once it had left Aide Kythis and was without corporeal form."

"But it went straight from Kythis to Hoffman - or just about. And how did it carry the phaser with it?" Kirk's voice. Tired, but without anxiety, the voice McCoy had heard at the end of missions a thousand times before.

"I believe the phaser was moved by another of the Vocheron - another of the Vocheron in physical form, perhaps I should say - and the later passage of the creature obscured all traces of their presence through the high level of radiation emitted by these creatures in their pure energy form. In all the access tunnels where Phillips Line radiation irregularities were recorded, the entire tunnel showed no signs of any physical presence - despite logs showing that maintenance crews had been through some of these tunnels less than 24 hours previously."

"But we were there minutes after he died - and all the Vocheron were present!"

"You were there minutes after the Vocheron reported his death, and minutes after the body began to cool. It is my theory that after Kythis' - inhabitant - left his body, that body was unable to continue living. In order to conceal both the anatomical changes that might have alerted Dr McCoy in some way, and in order to explain the death of Kythis, the Vocheron obliterated the most mutated part of the corpse with a phaser blast. They then concealed the phaser where it was found, their physical traces obscured by the radiation. Having done so, they raised the alarm. Due to the physical similarities to humanity present in the unmutilated parts of the corpse, Dr McCoy was led to the natural, but mistaken, conclusion that the body would have undergone similar changes upon death as a human body. Given Kythis' constant exposure to high doses of energy emissions, and the nature of the creatures we are dealing with, it seems probable that in fact that is *not* the case. The 'murder' also served the purpose of distracting the Enterprise crew and ensuring that they were at less than peak efficiency when the Vocheron attacked."

"But the creature went straight from Kythis to Hoffman." Kirk said. "How did it get into the nacelle conduit?"

You are not going to like this answer," Spock said.

"Let me have it anyway." Kirk was smiling, it was almost audible.

"I beleive that the death of the body we knew as 'Kythis' was caused by the reproductive process of the Voucheron's'parasites'. After this process, there were two creatures loose on the ship-"

"Then where's the other one?" Kirk snapped. Good point, Jim, McCoy thought. *Damn* good point, Jim.

"Inside the Sythene Ambassador, and currently no threat to our security. Captain, I would not have waited so long to tell you if there were any threat to the ship."

"It sabotaged the energy fields and then went and attacked Ambassador Trygian."

"I believe that to be the case."

"Why?"

"The sabotage of the energy fields was clearly to cripple the Enterprise in combat. The attack on Ambassador Trygian - the alteration in the Ambassador's behaviour from the time of the attack on the Enterprise, not to mention Hoffman's behaviour, leads to the hypothesis that these creatures are able to influence or control their hosts. A conclusion you yourself came to when you ordered a security lock-out of your command codes."

"Just tell me this." Kirk said wearily. "Did the field destroy it?"

"Indubitably, Captain, the probability approaches one hundred percent so closely there does not seem to be any other possibility. The Phillips Line manifestation of the creatures made it clear that this was a point of vulnerability for them - while physically invulnerable, and immune to many other kinds of radiation, the precise point at which they spiked the Phillips Line readings showed that -"

"Is that a 'yes'? Because I really would like to hear 'yes.'" Jim sounded tired. Well, no wonder, McCoy thought, starting to fight his way up towards the voices.

"Yes, Jim. It is destroyed."

"What about the Vocheron? You said - they're *all* infested with those creatures?"

"I may have misspoken." Spock said. "I certainly did not use the word 'infested'. But yes, all the Vocheron have been scanned, and all have within their bodies a creature similar to the one which attacked you. They - and Ambassador Trygian, who also contains one of these creatures - are contained safely behind stable fields."

'What *are* they?"

"I hypothesise that the energy beings maintain a parasitic relationship with the species we know as 'Vocheron'. Given the Sythene insistence on wearing bio-containment fields the entire time they were in the presence of the Vocherons, and their anxiety to be housed at the other end of the ship to them,  
I believe that the Vocheron - or the creatures within them, if it is possible to make that distinction - seek to extend this parasitic relationship to the Sythene species, and this is the cause of the war."

"Well, I wouldn't be too happy." Kirk said. "Matter of fact, I *wasn't* too happy."

"Indeed, Captain, I observed a distinct lack of delight in your expression." Spock said. "Given the extreme mutations Mr Hoffman was subject to - as indeed were those others of the crew who were exposed, even for a short time, to the creature's radiation in its pure form when it was without a corporeal host - I believe it is safe to hypothesis further, that the Vocheron have adapted to their situation on a genetic level, and are able to host these creatures for long periods without significant external alterations. I further surmise -"

"Always a mistake to hypothesis ahead of your data, Spock." McCoy croaked, feeling that perhaps it was time to remind them he was alive. He squinted up at the light, and after a second two blurry silhouettes obscured it. "Did it hit me?"

"I have considerable data." Spock said severely. "And no, Doctor, it did not 'hit' you. The containment field reached critical time before the creature was able to reach you."

"Something hit me. What was it?"

"If you are using the word as a physical scientist would, rather than in the pugilistic sense, the answer is: I did."

"No wonder it hurt!" McCoy said, tried to raise himself on his elbows and realised that was a bad idea. "An adult Vulcan at speed - even a skinny one like you - is no light matter. Although there are members of Starfleet Brass I'd like to prescribe that for."

"Lie still, Len." It was Chapel, and McCoy felt bad enough to obey her. "You have some broken ribs and another crack on the head to complicate matters. What were you doing? Playing the hero?"

"Huh," said McCoy, and craned his neck to see her as Spock and Kirk drew away. "What's that bandage on your cheek, Chris?"

She flushed slightly, but met his eyes. "I got a feed-back shock getting to Lieutenant Commander Iyen." she said.

"Playing the hero, were you?"

"Be nice, Len, or I'll sedate you."

"What happened, anyway?" McCoy said. "I remember that - thing - coming straight at me, but after that, nothing."

"Spock," Christine said, "Spock dived right across the corridor and tackled you and you both ended up on the floor. Then - he got up, and that creature spun around inside the brig, and started back - and then it sort of blew up."

"Sort of blew up?"

Chapel was silent. She couldn't think how else to explain the way the creature had shivered, and shuddered, and then seemed to fragment, like it was coming apart but very slowly, pieces of it floating outwards into the hyper-charged air of the containment field. The whole process had seemed to take long minutes, although Chapel knew that it had only been seconds.

"Yes," she said. "Then we picked all of you up and got you down here." And that was inadequate, too, to explain those frantic moments in the corridor, Spock sweeping the captain up in his arms and striding for the turbolift and her own panicked thought that the Vulcan would collapse, and injure both of them - Lia Burke steadily doing mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions on Lieutenant Larssen - Yeoman Brand sitting on the floor looking at his broken wrists and shuddering with shock - and Iyen's colour going from bad to worse, his vitals falling, her own conviction that he was going to die, going to die right under her hands, until suddenly something she had done had worked and she had sensed that he was coming back to them.

"The paralysis." McCoy said. "How are we doing on that?"

"*Dr M'Benga* is doing well with that." Chapel said. "There are some other side effects of exposure to the radiation in its purest form, but M'Benga has them under control."

"Other side effects?"

"The creature uses radiation to suit corporeal beings to become - its hosts."  
Spock said, coming back to the biobed. "Although it is the actual presence of the creature within a body that causes such mutations as we saw in the unfortunate Mr Hoffman, any contact causes some low-level cell mutations. Dr M'Benga, acting on the information he gained while you were present in sickbay,  
established a way to stabilise the mutations and eventually correct them, using both therapeutic agents and surgery."

Chapel wondered how he could speak so calmly of the crawling horror of that had affected those directly touched by the creature. The way the skin had - no.  
She would not think about it. McCoy was asking something, and she bent down to him.

"Where the hell was Scotty while all this was going on?"

"Mr Scott very sensibly sealed off the area surrounding the brig and was in the process of rigging a secondary set of domain generators to enclose the entire area when the creature's - demise - made it unnecessary to do so." Spock said.

"Fat lot of good that would have done *us*." McCoy said.

"It would not have done the Enterprise a 'fat lot of good', as you phrase it,  
if Mr Scott had also exposed himself to possible ... contamination, as that would have left the Enterprise without its three most senior officers."

"Sleep now, Len." Chapel said. "Everything's all right. Everything's under control. Go to sleep."

As if her words had been magic, he closed his eyes and his breathing became deep and even. Chapel checked his pulse the old fashioned way - although she would never have admitted it, McCoy's preference for touch-and-feel doctoring was mildly contagious - and then turned to Kirk.

"Sir, I need to take one final set of readings from you and Mr Spock before I can discharge you to your own quarters."

They submitted to her scans with (on Kirk's part) impatient good humour and (on Spock's part) impassive patience, and then moved towards the door, pausing to confer over something. Chapel had to brush past them to get to her next patient, and see how the tissue of Lieutenant Larssen's cardio-vascular system was responding to M'Benga's treatment.

"I don't know how you're still on your feet, Ms Chapel." Kirk said to her. "Didn't you take part in the search parties?"

"Yes, sir." she said. "I think everyone on board did."

It was true. Kirk thought he'd be hard pressed to find a single crewmember who hadn't spent some or all of their off-duty time crawling through access tubing or scrutinising relay conduits for signs of tampering.

He looked around the room at the figures lying or sitting on beds, bandaged,  
attached to regeneration units, uniforms ripped and torn. Iyen would have life-long scars from the burns he'd received. Brand was sleeping now, curled on one side with his arms outstretched before him to accommodate the bone regenerators strapped to them. He looked terribly young in sleep, although there were shadows on his face that no-one that young should have.

Most of the uniforms he could see were science section blue.

"Yeoman Brand will make a full recovery." Spock said, and Kirk raised a smile at how easily the science officer was able to follow his captain's train of thought.

"What happened to him, anyway? That's one of the bits - I can't quite remember."

"He came into contact with the creature and the radiation caused localised paralysis to his forearms and hands. He was in the act of pushing Lieutenant Larssen away from the generator unit to prevent her fall from dislodging the settings, and he succeeded despite loosing muscular control of his lower arms. Unfortunately, as he was unable to position his hands correctly, he broke both wrists in several places with the force of his actions."

"Didn't know when to quit, huh?" Kirk said. "Most of the people in here, it seems, didn't." He looked hard at Spock, who was displaying only Vulcan equilibrium despite the wounds on his face and hands and the fact that he had moved to the wall to slouch against it as soon as he could inconspicuously do so. "Think they got that from their section head who got up off his sick bed to take on a creature made of pure energy in hand-to-hand combat?"

One eyebrow quirked, Spock said, "I can think of other possibilities, Captain."  
His level gaze made Kirk aware of the protective gauze on his arm and face,  
covering permaskin beneath, and the ache in his chest where McCoy had pounded his heart back into obedient beating and then, later, M'Benga had done a quick and dirty regeneration job to prevent the spread of mutating tissue.

Kirk snorted. "Come on." he said. "Let's go talk to Ambassador Tyssin, and see what he has to say for himself."

"He might not have anything to say for *himself*," Spock pointed out, and Kirk shuddered.


	18. Chapter 18

Simple tricorder scans had revealed that each of the Vocheron harboured a creature akin to the one that had possessed Hoffman - as did the Sythene Ambassador, Trygian. All had been confined in cells reinforced with Phillips Line domains, and Spock had professed himself certain that they could do no further harm to the Enterprise or her crew. Kirk still found himself shuddering when he stopped in front of the cell that held Tyssin and the ambassador turned towards them. His mouth was open and the feelers that writhed from his throat seemed to all reach hungrily in the direction of the Starfleet officers.

"We have discovered your secret." Kirk said.

"Oh, wwe realisssed that." Tyssin said. "Thiss ... containment ... is quite effective."

'What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Tyssin laughed. "We fffailed. What isss there ffor mee to ssayy?"

'Why did you try to destroy my ship?" Kirk asked. "What harm had we done you?"

"Oh, no hharm, no hharm at all. Pleasse, do not think this was a mmatter of enmity, Captain. It wass a matter of ... polllicy. And nnot to destroy, no."

'What do you call yourselves?" Spock asked politely.

"We call ourselves the Vocheron." Tyssin said. "We arre the Vocheron - or at least, there are no Vocheron where we are not."

"How long have you had this relationship with the Vocheron?"

"Many, many, mannnnny year." Tyssin said. "They need us. They were living in mmud huts and hhhiding from the night when firssst we cammme. We gave them civilissation. We wwould have given them the sstars... it was not alwayss like this..."

Kirk opened his mouth to speak, and then paused. Better, perhaps, for Spock to handle this. He himself was too angry, but Spock's composure was unbroken. Indeed, now the danger was past, Spock's curiosity was no doubt in full flight.  
He glanced at the Vulcan, and Spock flickered an eyebrow in acknowledgement.

"Not always like this?" Spock prompted.

'There were mmmany of them, mmmany, and few of us. Only a few were chosen, and wwe lived within themm until it was out time, and we taught themm through our chosssen vessels and all prosspered. It was never ... pleassant ... for them,  
to be chossen, but the rest bennefited so greatly, that they camme to us,  
singing, prepared to becomme ... more than they wwere."

"What happened to change this state of affairs?" Spock's voice was dry and precise, and his tricorder was recording, as if he were doing some ordinary xenoanthropological interview and not talking to the representative of a species that had tried to kill them all.

"Sssex." Tyssin said baldly. "Or so you could sssay. Before, we werre few,  
and space wass far, and we were feww and did not grow in nnnumbers. But when we found thessse people, and joinnned with them, from time to time one of us would becommme two. And it was not mmany, and not oftenn, but over timme there came to be mmore of us, and mmore, until it was not a few Vocheron wwho hosted us, but mmanny, and then most, and then nnearly alll. Somme of us tried to llive as we had before, outsside the bodies of otherss, and they never greww from one to twwo or morre, but it wass not the same, nothing like the sssame,  
and sooner or lllater they sought to return, to be withinnn a body that could touch and mmmove and feelll the world of matter. And thennn... some three hundred yearsss ago, as you think of it, we began to nnnotice that there were fewer and fewwwer children born to the Vocheron. We knew that we mmmussst act,  
and we sssought out a new sspecies to aid. We found the Sythenes, but they -  
were rressistant. And even as we ssent our Vocheron againnst them, to bring themm to submission, still fewer and fewwer children were bornn. And for the last five years, none at alll. And we knew we had nno mmotre timme."

"And so you decided to capture the crew of this ship?"

"Not exactlly." Tyssin said. "Not ... precissely ... that. At first, yess, we needed yourrr ship. We nneeded, more than your ship, yourr crrew. We knnew that with a little time, we could llearn to change you so you wwould endure our presence as eassily as the Vocheron - or morre so. But you arre few, and we are mmany, and we need manny." He was silent along moment, and then lifted up his head towards them, gazing into the distance. "But yourr Federation is larrrge."

Kirk imagined those graceful, deadly, careless creatures swooping along the corridors of a Starbase, civilians scattering before them - or plunging down on a colony settlement - or in the teeming streets of San Francisco, the solemn avenues of Moscow, Shi'Kaar's grave and joyous parks or Marrtoth's glorious caverns -

Spock caught him by the arm before he had gone more than a step towards the force-field. Looking up, Kirk saw his own anger mirrored on the Vulcan's face for an instant before Spock shut it out. He took a deep breath, and pulled away.

"Ambassador," Kirk said. "you have admitted to hostile intent towards the Federation of Planets. Under General Order 15, I am confining you until such time as the Federation Council has made a determination. That is all."

He turned on his heel and strode away, not trusting his temper if Tyssin said anything further. Spock followed him.

"Spock," Kirk said. "Does your research show - the reasons for the fall in the Voucheron birth-rate? Is it a long term effect of the radiation?"

"No, Captain." Spock said. "I can find no physical reasons for the change in demographic patterns."

"Can we assume that he's telling the truth about that?"

"I think it eminently reasonable to do so." Spock said. "Such demographic effects would be predictable in the long term in most populations."

"How? I mean, why?" Kirk asked.

Spock stared straight ahead at the closed turbolift doors, as if hoping the arriving turbolift would pre-empt his answer. When he did speak, his voice was steady and cold.

"It is neither logical, nor ... rewarding, Captain, to reproduce one's species to merely serve the purposes of others. In this case, there would be no hope that the host species would retain any of their own values, would have any chance of even occasional autonomy, would have any hope of survival. The reason for the fall in the birth-rate is not physical, Captain. It is -  
despair."

"On some subconscious level beneath the control of the - what is it, a parasite?"

"Yes." Spock said.

"Why have children when all you can give them is hell?"

"Yes." Spock said again.

Kirk was very still for a moment, and then took a measured step towards the wall and laid one hand, very carefully, against it. He wanted, in fact, to punch it - as a substitute for the Voucheron ambassador - but that was not productive, and not permitted of a starship captain in public, even when the public was only Spock.

"You were correct, Captain." Spock said. "The Federation Council is undoubtedly the correct body to determine what action ought to be taken." Spock said.

Kirk looked at him. "You know I'll stand by that decision." he said. "Even though - they killed my crew, Spock." Kirk said. "They killed my crew."

Spock was silent as the turbo lift arrived.

"Bridge." Kirk, and the turbolift accelerated.

"Captain," Spock said. "when the Vocheron first arrived, I advised you not to respond to your instinctive revulsion at their appearance. However, they did indeed turn out to be a threat to the ship. I believe that my advice may have prevented you from listening to the subliminal clues you were receiving-"

"Your advice was perfectly sound, Spock." Kirk said. "We were all so busy overcoming our distaste at their appearance that we nearly let them pull a fast one on us."

"My point exactly, Captain. If I had not -"

"If *we* had not had such a subjective reaction," Kirk said, "we wouldn't have had to put so much effort into suppressing it. There were no subliminal clues to my disgust. It was atavism, pure and simple, and it has no place in Starfleet."

Spock regarded him closely. "But your reaction was *correct*, Captain."

"Only by coincidence," Kirk said. As the turbolift stopped, he straightened his shoulders and stepped out onto the bridge. "Remind me to tell you,  
sometime," he said as he strode down to take the centre chair, "about kittens and toads."

* * *

Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Captain James T Kirk, Stardate 2053.6

We have turned over the Vocheron and Sythenes to the USS Inaiue, whose destroyer class facilities are more appropriate for both their detention and the transport of an External Affairs investigation team and a Starfleet quarantine detachment. We are limping back towards Starbase 22 for repairs and advanced medical treatment, and expect to arrive in eleven standard days from now.

In addition to recommendations already recorded, I recommend for commendation:

Commander Spock, for courage in the face of grave danger and risk to his life.

Lieutenant Commander Iyen, for courage in the face of grave danger and risk to his life.

Dr Leonard McCoy, for conduct above and beyond that required by his duties, for courage in the face of grave danger and risk of his life.

Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, for initiative and exemplary conduct.

Nurse Christine Chapel, for exemplary conduct.

Nurse Lia Burke, for exemplary conduct.

Yeoman Janice Rand, for initiative.

Yeoman Michael Brand, for courage in the face of grave danger and risk to his life.

Ensign Regna, for courage in the face of grave danger and risk to hir life.

We will this day also hold the memorial service for our dead. According to their wishes, the three crew who died on this mission will be buried in space;  
according to hers, the body of Ann Ridley will be returned to her planet of origin for burial. We bear witness to the bravery of these four beings and commend their spirits to their deities. Their courage is an example to us all.

* * *

Three torpedo tubes, still travelling on the last course their launch gave them, drifting in lonely convoy through the deep. With no atmosphere to affect their speed, and no gravity to change their path, they will float on together until a planet, or a sun, or a comet, brings one or all of them to a fiery end.  
In the meantime, though, they journey ever onward through the cold, through sectors of space never mapped by starships, past solar systems where species live that are not yet dreamed of in federation space.

Where no one has gone before.


End file.
